The British newspaper The Guardian received 3 voice calls intercepted by the Ukrainian army.
The first is the call that Andrey, a Russian soldier on the front line in eastern Ukraine, made to his mother on November 8 with his banned cell phone, despite orders from his superiors.
“No one feeds us”, he laments. “Our supply sucks, to be honest. We draw water from the puddles, then filter it and drink it.“
Two days before calling his mother, the Russian forces had started firing with phosphorus bombs on the Ukrainian positions, he explains to her, while getting annoyed at the absence of the promised ammunition: “Where are the missiles that Putin bragged regarding? There is a skyscraper just in front of us. Our soldiers can’t reach it. We need a Caliber cruise missile and that’s it.“
Another intercepted call was from a soldier to a grieving parent following the death of his child at the front on 6 November. He explains that they had neither reinforcements nor communication with their superiors. “They said we weren’t allowed to retreat. Otherwise we might be shot down“, he says.
The last call received by The Guardian dated October 26 and is that of a Russian soldier in Donetsk who contacts his wife. He confesses to her that he is thinking of surrendering: “I’m in a sleeping bag, all wet, I’m coughing, I’m in a bad state. They authorized our massacre“, he confides.
Partial mobilization and lack of training
The lack of Russian communications security is not a recent problem and has garnered many formations within the Russian military. But, in the case of the partial mobilization which began on September 21, many received hasty and shallow training which, for the majority, was not enough.
“Soldiers are given a crash course in how not to divulge sensitive information, but it’s mostly lip service“, says a former Russian official, explaining that the commanders do “pretend to teach and the soldiers pretend to listen.”
“There is simply no discipline and it will only get worse now that they have mobilized 300,000 people who will barely be trained. Mobilized soldiers will be terrified of being in a war zone, and naturally they will try to call home“, he explains. According to this representative, this worsens the Russian security situation.
