-Analysis-
The Russian military in Ukraine has been relying on foreign-based civilian communication services — Telegram and Discord — for two-and-a-half years, in the absence of reliable and high-quality domestic systems. They use these services to issue orders, adjust artillery fire, and broadcast transmissions from the cameras of reconnaissance drones.
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By blocking Discord, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communication oversight authority, has essentially deprived a significant proportion of Russia’s military divisions of a proven means of coordinating action. Nothing else has been proposed to replace it. Ivan Philippov, writer and researcher of Russia’s pro-war Z-community, explains what Discord meant for the Russian military and how the “patriotic war” is imbued with solely “Western” meanings.
Banning “gadgets”
All last week, military and affiliated channels were debating Roskomnadzor’s decision to block the Discord messaging application in Russia. The question seemed to be: where is Discord — which is primarily used by gamers around the world – and where is the war in Ukraine?
Thank you to all those idiots who are making decisions about blocking communications.
In fact, many of the Russian army’s combat plans were heavily reliant on the app. For example, back in July — when Russia’s State Duma, the federal assembly, wanted to ban “gadgets” for soldiers and officers – the Voenniy Osvedomitel Telegram channel wrote that “all communication is built, in particular, on the use of strictly civilian gadgets, online broadcasts of the conditions recorded by drones and online voice calls via Discord.”
Pro-war Z criticism
When Discord was nevertheless blocked last week, the Z pro-war community reacted immediately: “Drone broadcasts operating through closed Discord channels dropped from dozens of control centers. This has thrown everyone back to March 2022. Even [the Ukrainians] with [the help of] America couldn’t do this,” the volunteer channel Troika posted. “After Discord was blocked, all streams from the drones dropped from headquarters… ‘Thank you’ to all those idiots who are making decisions about blocking communications,” wrote the Z-channel Varyag.
And there have been plenty of other similar rants.
They have effectively detained the Chief of Communications of the Russian Armed Forces.
Since literally the first day of the invasion, Z-channels have been writing about how the Russian army does not have its own reliable and secure means of communication. And no matter how much Russian politicians, including top officials, talk about the rapid pace at which imports are being substituted by domestic alternatives, the Russian army literally cannot fight without third-party civilian services, including American ones — specifically, Discord and Starlink.
Indeed, pro-war Russians wrote about the dependence on foreign civilian services after Pavel Durov was detained in Paris: “They have effectively detained the Chief of Communications of the Russian Armed Forces,” the channel PNV: Vne Formata” wrote. While the author of the channel Military Informant added: “What to do, such a modern army doesn’t attack without a “telegram” and a “discord.”
Comrade Elon
Now, with the blocking of Discord, the author of the Pora Domoi channel said that it “has raised many questions: yes, the service is Western, but what do we have that’s not Western?”
And it would be here, of course, that once again we stop and look at the current situation with sincere amazement. That is, Russia is waging a horrific war of aggression, condemned by the entire Western world, on the territory of a neighboring independent state. But it can only do this effectively with the help of Pavel Durov and Elon Musk.
Musk can repeat as much as he wants that the Russian army does not use Starlink, but it’s not true. The terminals are freely sold, and the Z-space is literally filled with ads for their sale or warnings about unscrupulous traders. There are photos and videos of the modules in Russian dugouts, and there are even video messages of gratitude personally addressed to “the General of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Comrade Elon Musk.”
It is, for both pro- and anti-Kremlin commentators, a situation that is nothing short of absurd. The situation reminds me of a Russian tweet I saw in the months after the invasion of Ukraine: “All that we have of our own is war, everything else is imported.”
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