Russian soldiers rely heavily on their personal cellphones to fight the war in Ukraine, even though it could put them at risk of death

• Russian soldiers rely largely on their private cell phones in conducting operations in Ukraine.

• Former U.S. Army officers say the practice reflects a lack of safe communications and discipline.

• It also exposes Russian troops to attacks that Ukraine has previously benefited from.

Russian soldiers apparently rely heavily on their personal cellphones while conducting military operations in Ukraine, using them for tasks such as coordinating strikes and navigating the battlefield.

Former U.S. military officers say the trend underscores a lack of secure military communications options or discipline and leaves Russian troops vulnerable to attacks from Ukraine. Kiev has previously used cellular data to launch deadly attacks on Moscow’s positions.

Recognizing the problem, the Russian government is actively working to stop this trend. The lower house of parliament, the State Duma, recently proposed an amendment that would allow soldiers to be punished for using their private phones during combat in Ukraine.

“Wearing gadgets while serving in a special operations zone will be considered a serious disciplinary offense,” Russian state media reported on Monday, saying it “follows the amendments supported by the State Duma Committee on Defense.”

According to conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War think tank, the amendment has been widely criticized by Russian military bloggers who suggest that punishing soldiers for using their phones would interfere with battlefield operations, logistics, and command and control, given the widespread use of personal devices on the battlefield.

Analysts wrote in an assessment Tuesday that “Russian milbloggers have claimed that Russian soldiers rely heavily on their personal devices to transmit target coordinates, to call in Russian artillerymen and drone operators, to navigate front-line areas and to coordinate between units.”

Dangers of personal phones

Dan Rice, a former U.S. Army artillery officer who previously served as a special adviser to the Ukrainian military command, said the reliance on phones highlights a shortage of adequate, secure military communications for Russian troops.

This kind of thing has long been a problem for the Russians. “Realistically, the Russian military doesn’t enforce the ban on cellphones because there will be a huge backlash,” Rice, now president of American University Kyiv, told Business Insider. “So they allow it, knowing that using unsecured civilian cellphones will result in more Russian deaths and mission failures.”

Mark Cancian, a defense expert and retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, said the best solution is to use custom-designed — and highly secure — military systems for communications. But that’s expensive, and everyone already has a cellphone, making it an attractive option, even if it’s risky.

“This behavior says two things about the Russian military. On the one hand, it adapts to the circumstances on the battlefield, using civilian applications where military applications do not work,” Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, told BI.

“On the other hand,” he said, “there are many weak points that the Ukrainians are certainly exploiting.”

For example, Ukraine could pinpoint a Russian soldier’s location using cellular data. Multiple phones used in a general area could reveal more military activity, making it a possible attack option for Kiev.

One such incident occurred in late 2022, when Ukraine carried out a devastating precision strike on Russian troops massed in Makeivka, in eastern Donbas. Moscow blamed the high number of casualties on its own soldiers at the time, saying Kiev had found their location using mobile data. But there may have been other contributing factors.

Another risk for Russia, Cancian explained, is that soldiers will send information over unencrypted channels, exposing the data to interception by Ukrainian forces. He said that while there are encryption apps available, soldiers are sometimes just careless.

The Ukrainian military intelligence agency HUR regularly releases recordings of alleged intercepts of calls made by Russian soldiers. However, Russia is not the only country using mobile phones; Kiev’s forces also used mobile devices during the war. But Moscow is supposed to be at a higher level as a superpower.

As both sides use enemy phones to help pinpoint targets, U.S. military officials are warning American soldiers about the dangers these personal devices could pose on the battlefield.

“It’s very difficult to get soldiers to give up their phones and internet devices because this generation of young people has organized their lives around their phones and the connections that phones can provide,” Cancian said.

“The United States military will face the same challenges in the next conflict,” he added.

Read the original article on Business Insider