There's a reason that the "Super Special Forces Seal Team 6 Tear Omega" were being sent to the front lines to be meat shields or sniper detectors, anybody bringing a cell phone couldn't have been in the military in a combat arms unit at any point in their lives.
Anybody "volunteering" to do this shit that doesn't see somebody official looking grabbing and smashing cell phones before crossing the border should have had a "oh shit" moment that nobody was taking them seriously and the people around them weren't taking this seriously.
There’s a reason that the “Super Special Forces Seal Team 6 Tear Omega” were being sent to the front lines to be meat shields or sniper detectors, anybody bringing a cell phone couldn’t have been in the military in a combat arms unit at any point in their lives.
I distinctly remember the OSINT data nerds in the early days smugly declaring that Ukraine will win the propaganda war because the Russian MoD aren't internet savvy and refuse to let their soldiers carry phones.
Turns out the Russian MoD were actually military professionals who valued their troops not getting turned to mush by cruise missiles over likes and retweets.
I doubt they're tier 1 operators, but it's not as surprising as you think. Imagine if you served in Iraq/Afghanistan like 10 years ago, fighting against people way less technically savvy. It's easy to get complacent, especially in a war like this when you're fed so much crap about Ukrainians effortlessly crushing Russian demons.
Yeah, if barely functioning US units stationed in German tripwire postings were being told to not bring cell phones to Kuwait during the buildup for the Iraqi invasion of 2003 these wanna be war nerds should have known better.
I know we had company level and platoon level gear inspections and any cell phones that were found (back in 2003) were taken and most likely destroyed.