The Missing Daughter – and the Russian Propaganda Fairy Tale about a “Rescue” that in Reality Others Carried Out

It rarely begins with a chain at the gate or an armed guard. It usually begins with a promise. An enticing offer, an embellished photo, the illusion of a new beginning. For Dashima Otschirnimaewa, a young woman from a Buryat family that had shorn sheep for generations, it was an advertisement for modeling jobs in Thailand. High pay, major agencies, a comfortable hotel – the dream of a quick rise. But the path did not lead to photo shoots in Bangkok, but into a place where human rights have meant nothing for years.

Dashima was never someone who stayed in one place. Her father, Tumen Otschirnimaew, had also left his origins behind and had become a medic in a special unit of the G.R.U. His daughter initially took a sober path, studied at the Perm Institute of Corrections, wrote her thesis on the arms trade in Armenia and Kazakhstan, and ultimately ended up as a guard in a women’s penal colony. The work there disillusioned her quickly. She quit, lost a lawsuit over repayment of her training costs, and looked for a way out – first in Turkey, then in the world of online marketing promises, where one could supposedly get rich using three sentences on the sofa. It did not last long. And at some point, in spring 2025, she discovered that modeling offer.

Those who expected her in Thailand anticipated a professional applicant. It took only minutes for them to notice that the information in her application was not correct. The supposed employer demanded money for the flight, kept her passport, and imposed additional fees. Whether Dashima actually came from Turkey or – as a Russian consular officer in Guangzhou later claimed – had been abducted from Laos remains unclear. What is certain is that shortly afterward she ended up in that buffer zone between Thailand and Myanmar, where state power exists only theoretically and real control lies with militias, syndicates, and armed groups.

There, multi-story concrete buildings stand beside improvised shelters. In one building complex there is a call center, a few steps away a casino, next to it women’s quarters, server rooms, small restaurants and bars. A shadow city operated by groups accountable to no one. The most notorious operator of this region is a man from Macau, known by his nickname “Broken Tooth” (Wan Kuok-koi). After a long prison sentence in China, he built a kind of mini-city in Myanmar, where around 40,000 people work – many voluntarily, most involuntarily.

A part of this city belongs to a branch of the Karen, an Indigenous people who have resisted the Myanmar military for decades. Their women, mostly from the Padaung people, wear heavy neck rings, which earned them the folkloric name “giraffe women” around the world. But their role is far less romantic: some Karen commanders profit from renting out land, collecting protection money and supporting the structures of the scam centers. They provide guards, organize transport and control areas in which the state has no authority.

Dashima worked there as part of a team that focused on Russian-speaking victims. She invented life stories, told of supposed emergencies, offered fake investments, or described violence inflicted by an imaginary husband. With each call, men from Russia, the Baltic states, or Central Asia were to be drawn into a net of lies. Ten percent of the income was supposed to go to the fraudsters themselves – a goal that few achieved. Those who failed were punished. Some were shaved bald, others isolated for days. This is how Dashima ended up in one of the rooms where misconduct is sanctioned.

Through a secretly used phone, she managed to reach her father. He was deployed in Ukraine at the time. Dashima begged him to get her out, told him about money demands, threats, and that she was going to be resold. This call set the diplomatic machinery in motion. The Russian Foreign Ministry was informed, embassies and consulates received instructions, but their ability to act was limited. Myanmar has for years been in a state where the central government controls only parts of the country. Russia had no leverage in the region. The real power lay with China.

China has long been waging a harsh campaign against the fraud industry because countless Chinese are tortured or extorted in these centers. A semi-official Chinese operational structure exists along the border, negotiating with militias, applying pressure, transferring money, or clearing buildings. Through this connection, a Karen commander was reached, who in turn organized the release of four Russian women – including Dashima. The role of Russian entities was limited to communication and formal assistance. Without the Chinese authorities and without the Karen, no one would have been freed.

THE TEACHING EXAMPLE: How Russia Replaces This Truth

The state narrative in Russia looked different. Media close to the Kremlin turned the case into a patriotic hero story. In this second version, Dashima is not taken out of a chaotic criminal complex – but out of the hands of dangerous enemies allegedly lurking everywhere for Russia.

The article claims that Dashima Otschirnimaewa was freed by Russian and Myanmar authorities from an illegal call center in Myanmar and is returning home thanks to their help. This portrayal is, however, false because Russia had no operational access in the region, the rescue was in fact organized by Chinese services and a Karen commander, and neither a Ukrainian link nor any coordinated international police unit existed. The Russian embassy played no active role in the rescue but appeared only afterward, while the article pretends the liberation was a success of Russian state structures.

The first images distributed by Russian state media were taken at Bangkok airport. Dashima stands there between diplomats, politely arranged, the camera perfectly positioned. The video looks like the conclusion of a mission carried out deliberately and bravely. Not a word about the Karen militia that actually took her out of the center. Not a word about the Chinese officials who facilitated the handover. The images were not meant to explain what truly happened, but what Russia wants to stand for.

Shortly afterward came the next stage. REN-TV published a headline showing how easily a story can be twisted: “Ukrainians sell Russian women into slavery in Myanmar”. A supposed “Karina” is presented as the mastermind, as a perfidious lure leading young Russian women into disaster. This figure is entirely invented. The real woman whose photo was used was working in a cafe in Poland at the time. But that does not matter as long as the enemy image fits.

The texts accompanying this headline read like they come from a single template: dramatic descriptions, anonymous victims, alleged revelations about “Ukrainian gang structures”. No verifiable details, no sources, no evidence – and yet the pieces create a coherent picture. The message is clear: the danger comes from outside, and Russia protects its own.

At the same time, regional articles appeared, such as from Irkutsk. They repeat the state’s statements almost word for word. There it says the rescue was the result of “coordinated efforts by Russian and Myanmar police forces”. That these authorities had no access at all in the real situation is left unmentioned. The text matches what the audience is supposed to hear, not what actually happened. REN-TV provided another “revelation”: they had discovered the identities of the traffickers. The report is accompanied by a completely meaningless symbolic photo – a glass with flowers in front of a gray wall. The supposed perpetrators remain faceless, the text full of hints and claims that dissolve into nothing upon closer inspection. It is a prime example of replacing investigation by imitating it.

These pieces of evidence are more than illustrations. They show how propaganda works:

– essential parts of reality are omitted
– enemies are invented when necessary
– diplomatic routine becomes heroic action
– regional media reinforce national narratives
– pseudo-investigations suggest depth where none exists

Thus emerges a story that sounds tidy, is clearly arranged, and works emotionally – and yet is further from reality than any conspiracy told in the buffer zone.

Dashima gave a brief statement after her return to Russia, thanked diplomatic entities, and then disappeared again. With a new passport issued in Bangkok, she traveled to Thailand once more. Whether she again approached these structures or tried to build her own life remains unclear. That she returned fits a pattern: many women freed from fraud centers travel back there shortly afterward. Debt, pressure, hopelessness, and lack of prospects play a role, as do renewed recruitment attempts.

A few days after her return, the Myanmar army advanced into the border region and destroyed the entire complex of “Broken Tooth” (Wan Kuok-koi). Officially it was a strike against crime. In reality, it resulted from Chinese pressure. The Russian narrative that a “Russian success” had been achieved played no role in this. The case shows how wide the gap between reality and propaganda can be. A young woman caught in a net of debt, fraud, and violence. A foreign apparatus that pretends to have influence although it depends on China. A media apparatus that turns a rescue by foreign services into a heroic story. And a region shaped by structures that are stronger than laws, borders, or diplomatic notes.

There is little glamour in this story. It tells of people who fall into a system larger than themselves. A system that constantly grows, changes shape, and reveals itself only for short moments – usually when someone like Dashima escapes it. And even then, it remains unclear how long the freedom lasts when the shadows behind the border continue to grow.