Frontline 'phone ban: a parody of Russian law-making

Long before Russia’s Feb 2022 invasion of Ukraine, stories had filtered out from the low-level conflict in the Donbas that Russian forces relied on mobile ‘phones for their field communications.  They had – and still have – pitifully scant military means: the budget for radios etc was (by universal acknowledgement) long since looted in the great Russian tradition of wholesale embezzlement.  Use of private mobiles is certainly convenient (everybody has one, and smart ‘phones can do all sorts of useful things) but it comes with a dreadful drawback: they are not at all secure, and have been the cause of numerous successful Ukrainian artillery strikes, often of high precision.

More than two years on, the Duma has passed a new law making any use of “domestic gadgets” (specifically including mobiles and tablets) at the front subject not only to punishment but – uniquely in Russia – summary imprisonment without any form of hearing.  This, I believe, is unconstitutional, FWIIW.

Reaction from the legion of Russian milbloggers has built over the days.  The first line of hostility ran thus:  we absolutely can’t do without these gadgets; so the law will essentially be ignored, as per usual in Russia; but since literally every soldier has at least a mobile ‘phone, it gives local commanders a means of simply banging up anyone they don’t like.  This was not the end of the matter, but let’s pause for some context.

When I arrived in Moscow in the mid ’90s to set up an office there, I was warned by my local (American) lawyer that like everyone else I would be vulnerable to arbitrary arrest / fines etc at any time, because in Russia there is a complex web of laws (not least financial regulations), many of them mutually inconsistent such that everyone is always in breach of something.  It’s just a kind of reserve power the authorities keep for themselves.  The ‘phone ban fits this model precisely.

Then, the milblogger objections gathered force.  Firstly, they noted that most of the very many complaints raised by Russian soldiers about their dreadful conditions, reach the public domain via clips recorded on … mobile ‘phones!  How convenient to see this choked off.  Then, it occurred to them that the new law could be used to fill the ranks of the penal battalions that are thrown into the front line in what are known as “meat attacks”, for many months now the primary tactic of the grinding Russian.  There is nothing but grass roots hostility to this new law.

This isn’t just a case of “how typically Russian” – it’s like Russia to the nth power: a parody, a complete reductio ad absurdum.  You might say they’ve been doing things this way for centuries, and it’s true.  But it doesn’t sow the seeds of an ultimately sustainable way of carrying on.  Only the enforcement troops positioned to shoot waverers, coupled with deep Russian fatalism, makes this thing work at all.

ND