Ukraine, for its part, appears to have done
significant data collection — quietly assisted by
the U.S., the U.K., and other partners — targeting
Russian soldiers, spies and police, including rich
geolocation data.
Demediuk, the top security official, said the
country knows “exactly where and when a
particular serviceman crossed the border with
Ukraine, in which occupied settlement he
stopped, in which building he spent the night,
stole and committed crimes on our land.”
“We know their cell phone numbers, the names
of their parents, wives, children, their home
addresses,” who their neighbors are, where they
went to school and the names of their teachers,
he said.
Analysts caution that some claims about data
collection from both sides of the conflict may be
exaggerated.
But in recordings posted online by Ukrainian
Digital Transformation Minister Mikhailo Fedorov,
callers are heard phoning the far-flung wives
of Russian soldiers and posing as Russian state
security officials to say parcels shipped to them
from Belarus were looted from Ukrainian homes.
In one, a nervous-sounding woman
acknowledges receiving what she calls souvenirs
— a woman’s bag, a keychain.
The caller tells her she shares criminal liability,
that her husband “killed people in Ukraine and
stole their stuff.”
She hangs up.