Moscow moved on Tuesday to ban military members from using smartphones and social media after a series of leaks revealed Russian military traces.
Digital activity by Russian soldiers has proven a headache for Putin and his military. The bill that passed Russia’s lower house on Tuesday stipulates that the threat posed by digital tracking of Russian troops in Syria is quite delicate, saying that Russian soldiers are of “special interests” to other states and organizations involved.
“Information, shared by soldiers on the internet or mass media, is used for informational and psychologic [sic] pressure and in separate cases to form a biased assessment of Russia’s state policy,” said the note, signed by Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai A. Pankov.
For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to use the battle in Debaltseve in Ukraine during the annex of Crimea as an emblem of Russian military superiority in the country. Kremlin-aligned fighter groups ultimately claimed victory over national Ukrainian forces. Putin denied that Russian forces were present in Ukraine, doubling-down on the Moscow line that Ukraine is free to determine its own destiny and without any Russian intervention.
That summer, Vice News tracked and confirmed that two celebratory selfies uploaded onto social media after the conflict came from two Russian soldiers, an indicator that Russian soldiers were present in the region. Kremlin-backed Ukrainian troops had not been enough, as Putin had originally suggested.
Some experts in the area, however, are skeptical of the ban’s effectiveness.
“Russian soldiers are millennials for the most part. They love social media. They aren’t going to give it up entirely,” said Kirill Mikhailov, a researcher with the Moscow-based Conflict Intelligence Team.
Mikhailov also points to the fact that there are a myriad of individuals and organizations in hot-bed conflict zones, ranging from independent armed forces that aren’t under the jurisdiction of Russian military guidelines, to local and international journalists who monitor the conflicts.
The Pentagon has also had its fair share of concerns over social media and cellular application use by U.S. soldiers. Strava, a San Francisco-based fitness tracking app popular among servicemen, released a heatmap of users who opted to share their location. A researcher with the Institute of United Conflict Analysts was able to locate U.S. military installations using the heatmap.
