Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Recriminations are continuing in Russia about the disastrous Ukrainian HIMARS strike on mobilised soldiers in Makiivka. The Russian ministry of defence's statement blaming the mobilised themselves for giving away their location is being heavily criticised as a cover-up. ⬇️

2/ In a statement yesterday, Lieutenant General Sergei Sevryukov said that "the main reason for the incident was the activation and mass use – contrary to a prohibition – of mobile phones by [Russian] personnel in the enemy's range.

3/ "This factor allowed the enemy to track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers' locations for a missile strike."

However, Russian commentators are sceptical about this explanation and consider it to be an effort to deflect the blame away from the army's leaders.

4/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel points out that relatives say that their loved ones threw away their Russian SIM cards at the border and switched to local phones and SIMs when they arrived at Makiivka, which is a relatively densely populated area.

5/ A source quoted by VChK-OGPU casts doubt on the Russian MOD's explanation: "All the fighters there always had mobile phones. No one has ever really [been] bothered. The military only put their phones on airplane mode when they are at their positions.

6/ "And what about those who have no alternative – there are not enough walkie-talkies to provide communication. They launch drones from smartphones, watch videos, and communicate with each other. However, [artillery] arrivals do not depend on how many fighters have cell phones.

7/ "Shells also flew to places where there were no fighters at all because they had been withdrawn earlier. For such strikes there are gunners, spotters, satellites...."

8/ Semyon "WarGonzo" Pegov is similarly sceptical. He asks: "Why is the MOD so sure that the mass accumulation of our troops could not be calculated using, say, a UAV, or information from an enemy agent network, the fight against which constantly casts doubt on its effectiveness?

9/ "Coordinates of targets are leaked and VIPs' movements are regularly "tipped off" to the SBU – radio intercepts and agents caught red-handed are evidence of this. The network works, it does not sleep.

10/ "Neither do Ukrainian drones in the skies above Donetsk and Makiivka, which can provide not just information about a cluster of subscribers, but also confirm it visually.

11/ "All in all, it became clear to virtually all adequate commanders in this war quite a long time ago that it is practically impossible to conceal a troop concentration in a front-line city. Even in places where telephones do not work at all. As, for example, in Izyum.

12/ "Either the agents will turn them in, or they will be spotted by UAVs ...

In general the story with mobile phones is not too convincing. This is not a personal opinion, it is objective ... As it is, it looks like a blatant attempt to smear blame."

13/ The Wagner-linked Grey Zone Telegram channel is even more blunt, calling the original explanation "99% a lie and an attempt to throw off the blame. The most probable version, just as in other similar situations ... is agent-based intelligence.

14/ "Not to see the congestion and the gathering place of several hundred troops staggering around the city, in this case Makiivka, would only be a task for the dickheads in our military intelligence."

15/ "Both sides already know that despite the propagandists' mutual shrieks, personnel are best placed in a school, a kindergarten, due to them being more monumental structures than a private house, and due to the possibility of housing such a large number of people."

16/ The Two Majors channel agrees, and says that the unit's deputy commander – who was killed in the strike – was urgently looking for a new location for his men, who had been living there for two weeks.

17/ "On 18 December, mobilised men moved into the vocational school on orders from higher headquarters.

18/ "According to information from Donetsk, on that tragic night the regiment commander was looking for an urgent new location and Lieutenant Colonel Bachurin, deputy commander, and a senior lieutenant, head of one of the services, were still in the building. They were killed.

19/ "The facility's security and defence documents were also lost. In a fortnight of deployment, there was ample time for the Ukrainian security services to study the location and composition of the unit and calculate the exact coordinates for the strike.

20/ "There was no need for further confirmation of the mass calls, especially as such an outburst of mobile communications could have been regarded as a provocation to de-mask the Ukrainian firing positions."

21/ Russian commentators have pointed out many deficiencies in the situation, such as putting fuel, ammunition and hundreds of men in the same place at the same time. This is quite separate from anything to do with communications security.

22/ "For some reason, they did not specify who placed people in such numbers in the same building with fuel," one commentator says sarcastically.

23/ In the meantime, local people are bracing themselves for an intensive investigation by the Rusisan authorities. "People are against the placement of [mobilised soldiers] in the city, it is a potential danger," says one Makiivka resident.

24/ "In our city they don't want to talk about it among themselves, so as not to arouse suspicion, because they will definitely look for the culprits after that." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/vchkogpu/35671
🔹 t.me/vchkogpu/35710
🔹 t.me/wargonzo/10166
🔹 t.me/grey_zone/16450
🔹 t.me/dva_majors/7485
🔹 t.me/nowar63/78
🔹 doxa.team/news/2023-01-0…

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Follow-up thread:

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1610737994448633870