Russia has begged its citizens to quit using dating apps and warned them to start curbing social media usage in the regions being hammered by Ukrainian forces following their surprise cross-border incursion.
“The use of online dating services is strongly discouraged,” Russia’s interior ministry warned in a post on its official Telegram channel.
“The enemy actively uses such resources for information gathering.”
The warning was blasted out late Tuesday to citizens in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk — three border regions being targeted by Ukrainian forces as Kyiv forges ahead with its incursion onslaught.
In addition to trying to clamp down on dating app usage, the ministry fired off a list of recommendations advising people not to open hyperlinks in messages or stream videos where military vehicles are present, and to remove all geo-tagging locations on social media.
“The enemy monitors social networks in real time by these tags and reveals the actual location of military and security forces,” the post said.
Ukrainian forces are also connecting to “unprotected CCTV cameras remotely, viewing everything — from private yards to roads and highways of strategic importance,” the ministry added.
Separately, Russia’s state telecommunications monitoring service said Wednesday it had recorded mass disruptions in the popular Telegram and WhatsApp messaging apps.
It stopped short of revealing what was behind the disruptions.
The warnings, meanwhile, came as Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with one of the biggest drone strikes since the war began in February 2022.
Russia’s defense ministry said it downed a total of 45 drones over Russian territory overnight, including 11 over the Moscow region, 23 over Bryansk, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.
“This was one of the biggest attempts of all time to attack Moscow using drones,” Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel, adding that strong defenses around the capital made it possible to shoot the drones down before they struck their intended targets.
Russian media showed unverified footage of drones apparently whizzing through the sky in Moscow before being destroyed by air defense systems.
While Ukraine has been bogged down in a land conflict in eastern Ukraine in which the Russians have been driving forward slowly at a heavy cost to both sides, Kyiv has also been peppering Russia with drones.
Ukraine has targeted oil refineries and airfields in an attempt to weaken Russia’s fighting potential — and also has targeted the capital a slew of times.
Ukrainian forces have been using US-manufactured HIMARS rocket systems to destroy pontoon bridges and engineering equipment in Kursk, Ukraine’s military said Wednesday.
Russian officials have said Ukraine has damaged or destroyed at least three bridges over the Seym River since Kyiv launched its incursion on Aug. 6 — advancing up to 39 miles.
The attacks on the bridges could potentially trap Russian forces between the river, the Ukrainian advance and the Ukrainian border.
Washington hasn’t publicly commented on the use of US-made weapons in Kursk region.
With Post wires
