Just last night, we reported that, according to reporting from intelligence officials in Ukraine, another Russian general had been successfully killed by Ukrainian forces, near the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Deputy commander of Russia’s 41st Army ground forces, Russian General-major Vitaly Gerasimov, was reportedly the second massive loss the Russian military has suffered on Ukrainian soil in the last two weeks. Previously, deputy commander of the 41st Army, Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky was successfully eliminated by a Ukrainian sniper.
Frankly, this is bad enough news for the Russian forces and President Vladimir Putin personally, as it becomes clearer and clearer that all of the recent expert analyses theorizing that things weren’t going according to the dictator’s plans were pretty much spot on. But things get even more embarrassingly bad for the Russian president who obviously got far too cocky, as new reporting now indicates that in the process of Russian forces trying to call and inform their superiors of the loss of the general, their call was almost immediately intercepted by Ukrainian forces.
Why, you may ask? I’m happy to tell you.
Russian military found their call so quickly intercepted by Ukrainians because they called to report the combat loss on a regular, nonsecure phone line, complete with a local sims card. Now, you may be wondering why on earth they would do something so stupid, right? Well, that’s because, according to new reporting, they didn’t have a choice, as Russian forces had destroyed the 3G and 4G cell towers in Ukraine that were necessary to make their own secure system work.
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Christo Grozev, the executive director of investigative journalism and intelligence group Bellingcat, reports that Russian military members were stuck with the unsecured phone line that was ultimately intercepted because the highly secure cryptophone system, Era, that they’re supposed to use was inoperable because Russian forces had completely destroyed all of the cell towers that were required for the system to make a secure connection.
Era was implemented last year by the Russian Ministry of Defense which is supposedly guaranteed to work “in all conditions,” but it’s certainly become rapidly and rather ironically clear that’s not, in fact, the case.
His boss, who makes a looong pause when he hears the news of Gerassimov’s death (before swearing), is Dmitry Shevchenko, a senior FSB officer from Tula. We identified him by searching for his phone (published by Ukrainian military Intel) in open source lookup apps. pic.twitter.com/VyNAytitnK
— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 7, 2022
The idiots tried to use the Era cryptophones in Kharkiv, after destroying many 3g cell towers and also replacing others with stingrays. Era needs 3g/4g to communicate.
The Russian army is equipped with secure phones that can’t work in areas where the Russian army operates.— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 7, 2022
Putin and his Russian forces are truly hemmed up in just about every conceivable way at this point. To the point that they’re truly sabotaging themselves, whether intentional or not.
Featured image via Pixy Public Domain/Cassey Cambridge
