Information warfare goes high-tech in Ukraine
Associated Press
KIEV, Ukraine — Television journalist Julia Kirienko was sheltering with Ukrainian soldiers and medics 2 miles from the front when their cell phones began buzzing over the noise of the shelling. Everyone got the same text message at the same time.
“Ukrainian soldiers,” it warned, “they’ll find your bodies when the snow melts.”
Text messages like the one Ms. Kirienko received have been sent periodically to Ukrainian forces fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country. Some are crude threats, while others play on allegations that Ukraine’s billionaire president, Petro Poroshenko, is lining his pockets as soldiers fight in the field.
The threats and disinformation represent a new form of information warfare — the 21st-century equivalent of dropping leaflets on the battlefield — that sometimes hit a nerve in a grinding conflict that has claimed more than 9,900 lives.
“This is pinpoint propaganda,” said Nancy Snow, a professor of public diplomacy at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies.
Several of the messages collected by The Associated Press and other journalists and activists carried spelling mistakes typical of Russian speakers trying to write in Ukrainian.
Others came from nonsensical numbers (such as 77777) or were sent at impossible times (such as the year 1995), hinting at electronic fakery. A few tried to mimic payment alerts in a bid to trick soldiers into thinking their accounts were being emptied by their commanders.
The AP has found that the messages are almost certainly being sent through cell site simulators — which masquerade as one of the millions of cell towers that keep people connected all around the world — surveillance tools long used by U.S. law enforcement to track suspects’ cell phones.
Photos, video, leaked documents and other clues gathered by Ukrainian journalists suggest the equipment may have been supplied by the Kremlin.
The texts have been arriving since 2014, shortly after the fighting erupted.