#russian-military-signals

#russian-military-signals

In 2021, when Olga Rudenko and other journalists launched the Kyiv Independent, they were committed to making a publication that wouldn't face political pressure from an owner. A few months later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the Independent began reporting breaking news from the front lines.

According to the cybersecurity group InformNapalm, hackers from the Fenix analytical cyber centre monitored Russian military personnel around the clock from mid-2025 to February 2026, accessing drone monitoring systems and intercepting operational chats. The intelligence was passed directly to Ukraine's Defence Forces, helping counter waves of drone attacks and contributing to strikes on Russian command posts and launch sites. Read more related news:

William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, his CIA director, to warn Putin that the economic and political consequences if he did so would be disastrous.

Russia often mixes up how it attacks Ukraine with ballistic and cruise missiles - from firing decoys to tweaking trajectories midflight - and Kyiv says it's funneling that battlefield intel to US Patriot interceptor makers to inform upgrades for better performance. "They are trying to use different tactics and make some adjustments for their ballistic missiles," Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, said of the Russian strikes.

Russia's military is scrambling to find alternatives to Starlink satellite internet after access to the network was curtailed, disrupting a key communications system that its forces had been using illicitly on the battlefield. Ukraine said last week that Starlink terminals being used by Russian troops had been deactivated after talks between its defence minister and Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX operates the satellite network. Ukrainian officials said the move had already begun to affect Russian operations, including the use of drones.

SpaceX began requiring verification of Starlink terminals on Feb. 4, blocking unverified Russian units from accessing its services. Almost immediately, Ukrainian eavesdroppers heard Russian soldiers complaining about the failure of "Kosmos" and "Sinka" - apparently code names for Starlink satellite internet and the messaging service Telegram.