Russian troops using cell phones to fight in Ukraine, risking death

Aware of the problem, the Russian government is actively working to curb this trend. The lower house of parliament, the Duma, recently proposed an amendment that would punish Russian soldiers who use their personal phones during the fighting 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 that “this follows amendments supported by the State Duma Defense Committee.”

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 extensive use of personal devices on the battlefield.

Analysts wrote in an assessment Tuesday that “Russian military bloggers have claimed that the Russian military relies heavily on their personal devices to transmit target coordinates to call in fire from Russian gunners and drone operators, to navigate frontline areas, and to coordinate operations between units.”

The Dangers of Personal Phones

Dan Rice, a former U.S. Army artillery officer who previously served as a special adviser to Ukraine’s military leadership, said the reliance on phones reflects a lack of adequate and secure military communications for Russian soldiers.

This kind of situation has long been a problem for the Russians. “The reality is that the Russian military doesn’t enforce a cellphone ban because they’re going to get a very negative reaction,” Rice, now president of the American University in Kiev, told Business Insider. “So they’re allowing it, knowing that using unsecured civilian cellphones will lead to more Russian deaths and mission failures.”

Mark Cancian, a defense expert and retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel, says the ideal would be to use custom, highly secure military systems for communications. But that’s expensive, and everyone already has a cell phone, making it an attractive, if risky, option.

“This behavior says two things about the Russian military. First, it is adapting to circumstances on the battlefield, using civilian applications where military applications don’t work,” said Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

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

For example, Ukraine can locate a Russian soldier through his cellular data. Using multiple phones in a given area could reveal greater military activity, making it a possible strike option for kyiv.

One such incident occurred at the very end of 2022, when Ukraine launched a devastating precision strike against Russian troops gathered in Makiivka, in the eastern Donbas region. Moscow then blamed the high death toll on its own troops, claiming that Kiev had found their location through their cellular data. But other factors may have contributed to the incident.

The other risk for Russia, Cancian explained, is that soldiers transmit information through unencrypted channels, making the data vulnerable to interception by Ukrainian forces. He added that even if encryption applications are available, troops are sometimes simply careless.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, HUR, regularly releases audio recordings of intercepted phone calls made by Russian soldiers. However, Russia is not alone in using cell phones; Kiev’s forces have also used their mobile devices during the war. But Moscow is supposed to be a major power at a higher level.

As both sides use enemy phones to aid in targeting, U.S. military officials have warned American troops of the dangers such personal devices could bring to the battlefield.

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

“The U.S. military will face the same challenges in its next conflict,” he added.