When #2 goes down the prime suspect is usually #3.
Unless, ref @smithsb, some hostile force takes credit. In this case somebody from Ukraine. It’s literally a joke how many "#2"s we supposedly killed in the Afghan days.
Kind of a stretch to call this “regional,” but Peru, which currently operates a fleet of Russian Mig and Sukhoi fighters, has decided to purchase American F-16Vs as its new jets. Further distancing itself from Russia as a client.
I have my bucket of popcorn. Russia is slowly falling apart.
While I agree it is happening- slowly- that popcorn is gonna get pretty stale. 
We got lucky once when the Soviet Union fell apart that they didn’t have any rogue nuke launches nor deliberate ordered-from-the Kremlin launches.
We may not get so lucky the second time.
I’m eager for Russia to retreat into sullen introspection, even if sorta leaning in the North Korean direction. I’m not eager to have them fall apart.
Should secure military comms really be going through publicly available social media…?
Well, if the alternative is “carrier pigeons”…
Heck, it was good enough for POTUS & his crew.
For what it’s worth, the USA and Russia seem to have agreed to continue observing the START treaty even though it is expiring soon. The lack of START could have potentially pushed Russia into tougher financial burden if it felt the need to spend more on nukes.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/05/new-start-arms-control-us-russia-extend
It was good enough for Captain Blackadder although that almost ended very badly.
More good news, Canada is planning to have its defense spending reach 5% of GDP. (Rather doubtful they will actually get to that, though.)
Ahh yes, but which enemy are they planning to deter or defend against? The one over near Ukraine, or the one just south of them?
Honestly, Telegram and Signal are probably as secure, if not more so, than the official military communications channels. Well, unless you do something idiotic like inviting the editor of a major publication to your secret chat. Encryption is encryption, and if done right, ain’t nobody can crack it. And all evidence is that those apps did, indeed, do it right. The only risk is that the companies might have deliberately installed back-doors in the system so that they could eavesdrop themselves, and, well, they probably didn’t (and that risk also still exists in the official military channels, even with a lot of money and effort spent to prevent it). Weigh that against the commercial systems probably being more reliable and available than the military system (especially for an incompetent military like Russia’s), and it’s easy to see why the troops would use it.
Fun fact: the same technologies that work best for the former will also be best for the latter, so we don’t have to choose.
Eh, not necessarily. There’s a big difference between fighting a land war along an extremely long border, versus supporting an overseas ally, and an even greater difference from extreme-range strikes (or defense against the same) directly against a distant enemy.
I will nitpick this a bit. I agree that encryption is encryption and the apps are likely quite secure, as apps. However, they are consumer apps, to be installed on consumer devices — which are generally less secure than hardened military devices. Even if the app is locked down, consumer devices are regularly compromised with hidden screen-shot malware and other mechanisms that relay the content being viewed without impacting the operation of the app itself. I would therefore trust the security of Signal etc only insofar as I trust the security of the device it’s installed on.
OK, point, the device itself might be unsecure. But to get around that, you need all communications to go through official military-issued devices, which gets back to the point about availability. How many of those are there, and are they distributed to all of the units that need them? If you don’t have a secure comms device, and your choice is unsecure communications or no communications, it’s almost always better to have the former.
If I were a competent mid-level officer in the Russian military, I’d probably get locked-down versions of consumer cell phones for the troops under me, that could only install apps from a tight walled garden of approved apps (which would include Signal or Telegram). It’d probably still be possible for troops to jailbreak them, so as to install the risky, unapproved apps that might carry spyware, but it’d at least make it less likely. In the absence of a competent high command, that’s probably the best compromise available.
Or the app might be compromised, either by the app vendor or rogue developer or modified by the app stores.
Aside from the security of the messages themselves, just connecting to a network gives away your location.
Handing out locked-down devices requires money, discipline, and trust in authority – all in short supply in the Russian army.
Bold of you to assume that the Russian army isn’t just using Bao Feng 2-way radios at this point.