Russia's FSB secret service on Wednesday said it had prevented a number of women from boarding flights to Turkey where they planned to meet up with suspected "terrorists" they had fallen in love with online, AFP reports.
On several occasions, agents from the Federal Security Service approached women, aged 18 to 30, at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport to tell them the men they had met on social media were in fact "suspected members of terrorist organisations", the FSB's branch in Russia's second city said in a statement.
Each time, the women then decided of their own volition not to board their flights to Istanbul, it added, without specifying how many women were involved.
They were "in love with these men" who had paid for their tickets and who "had not given any indication they belonged to terrorist groups," the statement said.
The FSB operations took place from September to December.