Calls between Russian soldiers and their loved ones – who were intercepted by Ukraine – reveal the realities of war for Kremlin troops
Out on the front line, near the city of Lyman, eastern Ukraine, at 3:10 p.m. on November 8, a Russian soldier named Andrey decided to ignore his superiors' orders and called his mother on an unauthorized cell phone.
"No one feeds us anything, Mom," he complained. “Our supplies are poor, to be honest. We draw water from stagnant water, then filter it and drink it.”
Russian troops have been on the back foot in Donetsk oblast for weeks. Lyman, taken by the Russians in May, was liberated by Ukrainian troops in October.
Two days before Andrey's afternoon return home, Russian troops “finally” began shelling Ukrainian positions with phosphorus bombs, he told his mother, but the promise of battle-changing ammunition was meaningless. missiles that Putin is proud of?” he asked. “There is a tall building right in front of us. Our soldiers can't hit him. We need one Caliber cruise missile and that's it." Andrey assured his mother, who lives in Kostroma, a city 310 miles southeast of Moscow, that he would be fine. “I always pray, Mother,” he said. "Every morning."
It is not known whether these prayers were answered. When approached by The Guardian, the mother said her son was not with her, before breaking down in tears and hanging up the phone.
The contents of the conversation between the soldier and the mother, which lasted five minutes and 26 seconds, can be heard and read today because it was intercepted by the Ukrainian military and forwarded to this newspaper.
Others were shared with the Guardian, including a conversation on Nov. 6 between a father and a colleague of his son, Andrei, who was killed while serving in the 35th Motorized Rifle Brigade, 5th Company.
“Reinforcements: no; communication: no”, answered one soldier to questions from bereaved parents about the status of survivors of the Ukrainian attack. “They said we were not allowed to retreat. Otherwise, we might be shot.”
In the third intercept of 26 October, a soldier in the Donetsk region told his wife how he had fled with three others from the bloodshed and was considering surrendering. "I'm in a sleeping bag, all wet, coughing, generally messed up," he said. "We were all allowed to be slaughtered." The soldier's wife declined to comment when approached by this newspaper.
Those are just three of the thousands of calls between troops in trenches or advanced positions that Ukrainian experts have eavesdropped on, pored over bits of intelligence and then, where there is propaganda value, made public.
In the first period of the war, the lack of security around Russian communications meant that conversations about strategy between military commanders were picked up, even by amateurs, thanks to the military's use of open radio frequencies.
That, according to Dmitri Alperovitch, a cyber expert who heads the Silverado Policy Accelerator, is becoming rarer.
A series of media articles based on wiretaps chronicling human rights abuses in Bucha, the town north of Kyiv where civilians were allegedly shot, and deteriorating morale within the military, have resulted in Russian troops sharpening their actions – to some extent, as Andrey calls them. highlighted.
“There are still many soldiers who bring cell phones to the front lines who want to talk to their families and they are intercepted passing through Ukrainian telecommunications providers or intercepted by air,” Alperovitch said. "It didn't cause too much trouble for the Ukrainian security services."
In themselves, some of the intercepted calls offer limited value in illustrating the attitude of Russian combat forces. The large scale of the calls made by the army, however, provide a very clear indication of Russia's military weakness. , according to one former Kremlin defense official who asked not to be named.
"Security has always been a mess, both in the military and among defense officials," the source said. “For example, in 2013 they tried to ask all the staff in the ministry of defense to replace our iPhones with Russian-made Yoto smartphones.
“But everyone is still using the iPhone as a second phone because it's so much better. We'll just keep the iPhone in the drawer of the car when we get back from work. In the end, the ministry gave up and stopped caring. If superiors don't take security very seriously, how can you expect any sort of discipline in the regular army?
At the end of September, Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of 300,000 reservists and "those with previous military experience".
The former Russian official said that this would only worsen the security situation. "Soldiers get a crash course in how not to give out sensitive information, but it's mostly for show," the official said. “Commanders pretend to teach [courses] and soldiers pretend to listen. “Even now, we see that soldiers continue to use social media and inform their wives and mothers about the war, sometimes revealing their location.
“There is no discipline and it is only going to get worse now that they have mobilized 300,000 people who are barely trained. Soldiers who are mobilized will be terrified of being in a war zone, and of course, they will try to call home.”
The Ukrainian army, which for years has benefited from NATO-led training, is not vulnerable to wide-scale communications intercepts.
The former Kremlin official said Putin learned the hard way that his army was in dire need of modernization and the top-down, Soviet-style model was not suited for any particular purpose.
"The army's doctrine is based on punishment, so soldiers will be punished if they mess up, but no one has tried to prevent them from providing information in the first place," the source said. "Chaos will ensue until they change the whole philosophy."
“There is no discipline and it is only going to get worse now that they have mobilized 300,000 people who are barely trained. Soldiers who are mobilized will be terrified of being in a war zone, and of course, they will try to call home.”
The Ukrainian army, which for years has benefited from NATO-led training, is not vulnerable to wide-scale communications intercepts.
The former Kremlin official said Putin learned the hard way that his army was in dire need of modernization and the top-down, Soviet-style model was not suited for any particular purpose.
"The army's doctrine is based on punishment, so soldiers will be punished if they mess up, but no one has tried to prevent them from providing information in the first place," the source said. "Chaos will ensue until they change the whole philosophy."