Captured Russians complain about dead general and comms meltdown in leaked call

Ukrainian defense officials have released audio from a call in which two captured Russian officers allegedly discuss the death of a top Russian general and the collapse of its secure communications network throughout Ukraine – allegedly due to Russian bombing of local cell phone towers cutting 3G and 4G service.

According to the Daily Beast, the recording provides audio of two purported Russian FSB discussing the death of a high-ranking general while in battle near Kharkiv and Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense identified the general as Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army.

In a statement, Ukraine’s intelligence agency said the general had been “liquidated” alongside “a number of senior Russian army officers” while fighting near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

If the reports – which have been verified by Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based fact-checking group – prove true, Gerasimov would be the second Russian general to be killed in Ukraine within a week following the death of the 41st Army’s deputy commander, Andrei Sukhovetsky.

But the Russian armed forces inability to protect its senior staff is not the only problem plaguing the demoralized invading force. The recording also shows that an inability to maintain secure lines of communications have hampered the Kremlin’s advance and left Russian positions vulnerable to Ukrainian defenses. On the call, one Russian officer can also be heard complaining that the army’s encrypted comms system had been destroyed – thus allowing Ukrainian forces to eavesdrop on Russian military communications.

In a sign of Russia’s antiquated military technology, the main issue is that Russian communications run on 3G and 4G networks – both of which have been destroyed by Russian bombs.

“In the phone call in which the FSB officer assigned to the 41st Army reports the death to his boss in Tula, he says they’ve lost all secure communications. Thus the phone call using a local sim card. Thus the intercept,” Bellingcat’s executive director, Christo Grozev, wrote on Twitter.

This is not the worst part. In the phone call in which the FSB officer assigned to the 41st Army reports the death to his boss in Tula, he says they've lost all secure communications. Thus the phone call using a local sim card. Thus the intercept. pic.twitter.com/cgHHo7VaRi

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) March 7, 2022

“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... In the call, you hear the Ukraine-based FSB officer ask his boss if he can talk via the secure Era system. The boss says Era is not working,” he added.