Smartphones as the Achilles heel of Putin's army in Ukraine?
– “The Russians are pretty naive”
Created: 05/16/2022, 16:48
By: Marvin Ziegele
A destroyed Russian Army tank photographed in the Kyiv region.
© Oleg Pereverzev/Imago Images
A mobile phone can be used anywhere.
Also in the Ukraine war.
There, however, it apparently creates an immense strategic disadvantage for the invaders from Russia.
Kyiv – Commanders in the US military have known for a long time that cell phones can be a major disadvantage in war.
The US military news portal Task & Purpose
reports that the mobile phone signal of soldiers can be located in order to fire rockets at positions with pinpoint accuracy
.
This is exactly what is said to have happened during the Ukraine conflict.
According to information from the portal, Ukrainian forces say they killed 12 Russian officers at the end of February – partly because the Russian military commanders used their mobile phones when the communication systems went down.
Ukraine war: Russian troops located via mobile network?
The background: When Russian troops invade Ukraine, their mobile phones emit a roaming signal.
That, in turn, connects to Ukraine's cellular network and allows Ukrainians to triangulate the whereabouts of the Russians using the three nearest cell towers, Artem Starosiek, CEO of Molfar, a Kiev-based open-source intelligence community, told
Task & Purpose
.
"Thus, the Ukrainian special services automatically receive information with the ID number of the device, the roaming number and, of course, the location of the person," explained Starosiek.
"Fortunately, Russians are quite naïve and ignorant of mobile devices, so they often call home, turn on their phones, and connect to Ukrainian stations."
Why isn't Russia destroying Ukraine's cellular network?
If this strategy works, however, why does Russia not focus its efforts on destroying Ukraine's cellular network during the ongoing offensive when it poses a strategic threat to its troops?
But the answer seems simple.
"It's ridiculous, but that's the way it is.
Russians need 3G and 4G for their communication to work.
They didn't build independent communications networks like the Americans or Chinese might have done," said James Lewis, a technology expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies at
Task & Purpose
.
Blockades in the cell phone network are said to have cost the lives of Russian generals.
(
marv
)