Colonel Khodarenok: loss of communication may lead the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defeat in the war
The Russian army has been consistently hitting data centers in Ukraine for more than a week. Only recently, the Russian Armed Forces have attacked the Bimobile and Parkovy data processing centers. They provided the transmission and processing of information, including military and intelligence. Why is the Russian army hitting Ukrainian data centers and how will this affect the course of its operations? says a retired colonel, a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru" Mikhail Khodarenok.
In addition to Bimobile and Parkovy, Ukrtelekom, which provided high-speed Internet services for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as for storing large amounts of data, was seriously damaged earlier this week. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the data center hidden in the building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Open Data center in Dnepropetrovsk were hit. The latter, according to the Russian military, was used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a hub for storing and transmitting intelligence to Western curators.
The direct consequences of the Russian strikes were the cessation of broadcasting of Ukrainian TV channels, disruption of the functioning of the Internet in almost the entire territory of the state, and the digital services of Nezalezhnaya turned out to be almost completely inoperable.
The Financial Times wrote on September 25 that the full extent of damage to the Ukrainian digital infrastructure is still unknown, but the strikes of the Russian Armed Forces threaten to undermine the digital economy of Ukraine. According to Ukrainian officials and affected companies, the attacks affected Internet providers Pavutyna, Etherlink, Crazy Network and Utels, as well as hosting companies Cityhost and MiroHost and others.
Unlike hitting a separate communications network, hitting a single data center can simultaneously affect many companies and services, from websites and cloud systems to payments, banking services, and government services.
Among other things, according to the Russian military department, data centers in Ukraine are largely integrated into the communications system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, as is known, is a set of interconnected and task-coordinated nodes and communication lines for various purposes created to control troops. It provides negotiations, transfer, reception and delivery of combat documents, data exchange in automated control systems and special systems.
It cannot be ruled out that Ukrainian data centers are, to a certain extent, elements of the so-called backbone communication network, designed to form primary communication channels, group paths, channels of various types of communication and distribute them between the communication nodes of the AFU control points.
As you know, to win a battle, nothing is more important than information about the enemy. But it can only be sent to the commander via smoothly functioning communication lines. Sometimes the connection is called the "nerves of war", as its role can hardly be overestimated.
As the military says, the highest military and political leadership can assign a soldier the rank of general, but only communication makes him a real commander.
To achieve military and political goals in a war, sometimes it is necessary to solve only a few tasks, namely: to deprive the enemy of the possibility of concentrating and deploying forces and means; to cut off the supply routes of materiel; to block the ways of a possible organized withdrawal of the enemy (thereby weakening his will and morale); and, finally, to strike at to the enemy's control centers and disrupt his lines of communication. Figuratively speaking, to break the connection between the "brain" and the "limbs" of the enemy.
This task is currently being solved by the Russian Armed Forces. And to a large extent, this is exactly what can bring the end of hostilities closer on Russian terms. As you know, a loss of communication is a loss of command and control, and a loss of command and control inevitably leads to defeat. The speed and timeliness of the transmission of reports, orders, orders and commands depends on the uninterrupted operation of communications.
The result of the Russian army's attacks on Ukrainian data centers may be a complete paralysis of the control system and the transition of the military and political leadership in Kiev to receiving and delivering combat documents, exchanging data using cars, helicopters, airplanes, boats, and in some cases, armored personnel carriers, tanks, and other military equipment may be used to deliver documents.
In other words, if the attacks on control centers and data centers are continued with increasing intensity by the Russian Armed Forces, then mounted messengers can also be used to deliver combat documents in Ukraine. It cannot be ruled out that the Russian command will step up efforts to disrupt all types of communications in the Armed Forces, including transmitting and receiving radio centers, radio stations, nodes, centers and stations of space communications, radio relay, tropospheric, wired communication lines, and channels of the state communications network.
Mikhail Khodarenok
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976).
Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
