They've been doing this since the start of the conflict.
It sounds crazy, but many Russian soldiers carried their civilian cell phones into Ukraine, probably not understanding that this was giving their position away to the Ukranian cell towers.
Ukrainians would then kill these soldiers, find their phones on their bodies, and then use the phone contacts to send photographs to the family.
It's not new, they always use cell phones, also "even" officers for battlefield comms.
What the Russian military quite successfully cracked on is soldiers taking selfies everywhere to post in VKontakte as there's remarkably little of it going on.
Some/many units also even execute every Ukrainian civilian caught taking photos of their positions of they're caught with such photos on their phones to keep opsec and don't get arty on their location. It's not a paranoia from their side because it's how it works actually.
They've been doing this since the start of the conflict.
It sounds crazy, but many Russian soldiers carried their civilian cell phones into Ukraine, probably not understanding that this was giving their position away to the Ukranian cell towers.
Ukrainians would then kill these soldiers, find their phones on their bodies, and then use the phone contacts to send photographs to the family.
It's not new, they always use cell phones, also "even" officers for battlefield comms.
What the Russian military quite successfully cracked on is soldiers taking selfies everywhere to post in VKontakte as there's remarkably little of it going on.
Some/many units also even execute every Ukrainian civilian caught taking photos of their positions of they're caught with such photos on their phones to keep opsec and don't get arty on their location. It's not a paranoia from their side because it's how it works actually.