‘We were allowed to slaughter’: Intercept calls for Russian forces | Russia

aOn the front line, near the eastern Ukrainian city of Liman, on November 8 at 15.10, a Russian soldier named Andrey decided to ignore his superiors’ orders and call his mother with an unauthorized mobile phone.

And he complained: “Nobody feeds us anything, mom.” “Our supplies are rubbish, to be honest. We take water from the puddles, filter it and drink it.”

Russian forces have been in a vulnerable position in the Donetsk region for weeks. Liman, which was occupied by Russian forces in May, was liberated by Ukrainian forces in October.

Two days before Andrei was due to call home, Russian forces “finally” started firing on Ukrainian positions with phosphorous bombs, he told his mother, but promises of munitions that could turn the battle came to nothing.

Where are the missiles that Putin boasted about? Asked. “There is a tall building right in front of us. Our soldiers can’t hit it. We need one Caliber cruise missile and that’s it.”

Andrei reassured his mother, who lives in Kostroma, a city 310 miles northeast of Moscow, that he would be fine. He said, “I always say my mother’s prayer.” “Every morning.”

It is not known whether these prayers took place. When approached by The Guardian, his mother said her son had not been with her, before breaking down in tears and hanging up.

The content of the conversation between the soldier and the mother, which lasted five minutes and 26 seconds, can be heard and read, because it was intercepted by the Ukrainian military and transmitted to this newspaper.

Others he shared with the Guardian, including a conversation on November 6 between a father and colleagues of his son, Andrei, who was killed while serving in the 35th Motorized Rifle Brigade, 5th Company.

“Reinforcements: No; Communication: No,” a soldier responded to questions from the grieving parent about the situation for the men who survived a Ukrainian attack. They said we are not allowed to back out. Otherwise, we might be shot.”

In a third interception from 26 October, a soldier in the Donetsk region told his wife how he and three others had escaped bloodshed and was considering surrendering. “I’m in a sleeping bag, everything’s wet, I’m coughing, and I’m generally having sex,” he said. “We were all allowed to be slaughtered.” The soldier’s wife declined to comment when contacted by this newspaper.

They are just three of the thousands of calls between soldiers in the trenches or outposts that Ukrainian experts wiretapped, looking for snippets of intelligence, and then, wherever there was propaganda value, made public.

In the early period of the war, the lack of security around Russian communications was such that conversations about strategy among military leaders were picked up, even by amateurs, thanks to the military’s use of open radio frequencies.

This is according to Dmitry Alperovichthe Internet expert who heads the Silverado Policy Accelerator, is becoming increasingly rare.

A collection of media articles based on objections chronicling human rights abuses in Bucha, the town north of Kyiv where civilians were allegedly shot dead, and increasingly deteriorating morale within the military have sharpened the actions of the Russian forces – to some extent, highlighting Andrei’s call.

“You still have a lot of soldiers who bring cell phones to the front line and want to talk to their families and they get intercepted as they go through a Ukrainian telecom provider or they get intercepted over the air,” Alperovic said. “This does not pose much difficulty for the Ukrainian security services.”

By themselves, the handful of intercepted calls offer limited value in painting a picture of the attitudes of Russian combat forces.

However, the sheer volume of calls made by soldiers provides a very clear guide to the weaknesses of the Russian military, according to a former Kremlin defense official who asked not to be identified.

“Security has always been a mess, both in the army and among defense officials,” said the source. For example, in 2013, they tried to persuade all employees of the Ministry of Defense to replace iPhones with Russian-made Yoto smartphones.

“But everyone kept using the iPhone as a second cell phone because it was so much better. We would just keep the iPhone in the glove compartment of the car when we got back from work. In the end, the ministry gave up and stopped caring. If the summit doesn’t take security seriously, how can you expect What discipline in the regular army?”

at the end of september, Russian President Vladimir Putin He announced a “partial mobilization” of 300,000 reservists and “with previous military experience”.

The former Russian official said this would only worsen the security situation. “Soldiers get a crash course on how not to reveal sensitive information, but it’s mostly for show,” the official said. Leaders pretend to teach [the course] And the soldiers pretend to be listening.

Even now, we see soldiers continue to use social media and tell their wives and mothers about the war, sometimes revealing their location.

“There is simply no discipline and it will only get worse now that they have mobilized 300,000 people who will barely be trained. Soldiers who are mobilized will be afraid of being in a war zone and, of course, will try to call home.”

Ukraine’s military, which has benefited from years of NATO-led training, has never been subject to such large-scale interception of communications.

The former Kremlin official said Putin was learning the hard way that his military was in dire need of modernization and that the Soviet top-down model was not fit for purpose.

The source said, “The army’s doctrine is based on punishment, so soldiers are punished if they make a mistake, but no one is trying to stop them from divulging information in the first place.” “Mistakes will happen until they change the whole philosophy.”