Putin's desperate strategy to stop Ukrainian drones

MoscowIn the Volgograd region, formerly Stalingrad, Father Evgeni Karavayev is offering a different kind of prayer this November morning. He has traveled to the Lukoil refinery on the outskirts of the capital and, carrying an icon of the Virgin Mary, is reciting a prayer to protect the plant. of the Ukrainian dronesJust days before, these facilities had suffered another attack, the fourteenth in less than a year. The relentless efforts of Volodymyr Zelensky's army to strike at the Russian energy industry, especially the oil sector, and the authorities' inability to stem this bleeding have led some to invoke divine intervention. Meanwhile, from the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin is seeking more earthly ways to combat a campaign that has affected more than one hundred refineries and crude oil storage facilities, disabled almost 40% of the country's fuel production capacity, and jeopardizes one of the key sectors for financing the war. The first solution the Russian government has found is to deploy volunteers around the factories to shoot down drones. Initially, the call is directed at reservists, men with military training, but in some regions, inexperienced citizens are also being recruited. They are offered training and a salary that varies depending on the risk, that is, the proximity to the Ukrainian border: some administrations, for example, pay no more than 20 euros a month, and some give bonuses for each aircraft neutralized.

However, the plant owners doubt the effectiveness of this method. "Only a real army air defense system can protect us," one of them lamented to the independent media outlet. ViorstkaAnother question is how the targets to be monitored will be chosen if there are hundreds of facilities that have not yet been attacked, but could be at any time.

To implement this strategy, Putin has signed a law allowing the deployment of reservists in military operations "in peacetime." However contradictory it may seem, since Russia is not officially at war but is conducting a special military operation in Ukraine, this law will give the Kremlin free rein to use more troops in hotspots such as the borders. Activists are concerned, on the one hand, that this opens the door to a second mobilization without having to resort to such an unpopular measure, and, on the other hand, that the volunteers who have been promised they will only defend the refineries end up fighting on the front lines.

Disconnect the internet, disconnect the drones

The second solution implemented by the Russian government aims to disconnect Ukrainian drones. To achieve this, it will require Telephone companies to block Russian SIM cards for 24 hours that they return from their trip. The official argument is that there are many "orphan" cards that Kiiv uses to guide the unmanned vehicles. In this way, they want to guarantee a period they have called a "cooling-off" period to ensure that they cannot be used to carry out attacks.

On paper, users will be able to shorten this cooling-off time by solving a small test to prove they are human, the well-known captchaHowever, this system has been tested since mid-October with foreign SIM cards entering Russia and has been a disaster. For example, every time the phone switched networks, the blocking reset, the devices frequently failed, and in regions like Kaliningrad, the proximity to European Union countries rendered them permanently unusable. Experts disagree on the effectiveness of these measures in stopping drones. However, Natalia Kapriva, a lawyer from the NGO Access Now, which defends digital rights, warns the Russian Armed Forces (RAF) that disconnecting the network, especially during a conflict, is "disproportionate" and "endangers people's safety, as they cannot access information or receive emergency assistance." Since spring, the Kremlin has also been urging governors to shut down the internet when there is a threat of bombing. What began as an exception has become the norm, and in some regions, such as Ulyanovsk, a thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border, authorities have acknowledged that the restrictions will last until the end of the war. They claim that the outages only affect areas near critical infrastructure, but residents report being without mobile data for three weeks, regardless of where they live. To make matters worse, a law was passed this week granting the Russian government the power to isolate the Russian internet from the rest of the world in case of danger and forcing telecommunications companies to cancel communication services if requested by the secret service, the FSB, the former KGB. "It's quite obvious that the Russian government is using this large-scale war as justification for imposing unprecedented internet restrictions that could not be easily implemented in more peaceful times," Kapriva concludes.