British Fighters May Have Triggered Deadly Strike on Ukrainian Base After Their Phones Were Detected
A dozen phone numbers starting with +44 were visible to surveillance equipment before the missile strike
Source: The Telegraph
British volunteer fighters are feared to have triggered a deadly airstrike on a Ukrainian military base after their phones were detected in the area, the Telegraph can reveal.
At least 35 people were killed, potentially including three British ex-special forces troops, when 30 Russian cruise missiles pulverised the Yavoriv facility, near the Polish border, on March 13.
The target on the base is believed to have been the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security, where Ukraine has been training foreign civilian recruits for its international brigade.
Now, the Telegraph has learned that around 12 to 14 phone numbers starting with +44 were visible to surveillance equipment in the area in the hours before the missile strike.
Security sources said mercenaries paid by the Wagner Group, a secretive military company with links to the Kremlin, were suspected of operating on the ground at the time.
It has raised fears that the hired guns were able to use their own scanning equipment to intercept the numbers and pass them to Russian intelligence, which linked the details to former British military personnel and immediately ordered an attack.
Mobile phone numbers can become visible to snooping technology when the device pings a nearby phone mast to connect to the network so a user can make calls or send texts.
Russia is thought to have access to a vast trove of phone numbers linked to elite British units, compiled through secretive surveillance operations near military bases in the UK.
Many of the British men who have volunteered to join the resistance against Vladimir Putin’s invasion formerly served with these units, meaning their numbers would immediately set off alarm bells in the Kremlin if spotted connecting to a Ukrainian phone network.
A source said: “As soon as Moscow got any whiff of possible British presence on the base, they would have immediately ordered a strike.”
The attack on the base, one of Putin’s furthest forays west in the three-week-old war, lays bare the risks facing British recruits if they travel into the war zone, particularly if they fail to exercise caution with their electronic devices.
There is also concern that the burgeoning volunteer force that responded to the call to arms of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has been easily infiltrated by Russian spies.
“There was potentially a mole placed in the unit (on the Yavoriv base) who was seen running from the camp around 30 minutes before the attack, with a laptop and kit,” a source said.
British volunteers who, by a stroke of fortune, left the base just hours before the attack told the Telegraph earlier this week that they were alarmed at the chaotic nature of the operation to prepare foreign recruits.
Carl Walsh, from the Rhondda Valley in Wales and Ollie Funnell, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, claimed they received assurances in advance from Ukrainian officials that they could join the international brigade as medics.
However, the men arrived at the base to be told they would instead be sent to fight in the battle of Kyiv after just 48 hours of training – even if they did not have a military background.
Mr Walsh, a 50-year-old former combat medical technician, said: “They didn’t even have weapons in camp to train with.”
Britain has not deployed any troops to Ukraine to avoid being drawn into direct conflict with Russia, but scores of former military personnel have travelled to either join the fighting or help to train and support local troops.
A “small number” of serving soldiers are known to have gone absent without leave to try to enter the battlefield, the British Army admitted earlier this month.
It has ramped up anxiety that the capture or killing of any disobedient British troops could be used by Russia to claim Britain has entered the war.
The Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, warned any troops who leave to fight in Ukraine will face prosecution on their return.
Did you like the base near Lvov?
You’ll love the sports life in Kiev.
If your going to repost a pic in your comments, the least you could do is ensure there’s a connection with the pic and your words, which in this case, is absent. Detracts from any impression you may have wished to convey.
Idiots. Thought they’re facing some 3rd World Country with barefoot peasants carrying AKs.
Well deserved that strike.
Strike them all. No sympathy for mercenaries.
The British today are not the British of yesteryear,,, say the 1800s. In both world wars Britain required the help of the US to save their ass. In WWI they were using private shipping and got the Lusitania sunk. The Germans warned the passengers before the ship left NYC,,, but you know Americans. Even back then they were trained seals barking whenever told.
In WWII Hitler saved their army by allowing them to retreat at Dunkirk. (The British made this run for the border retreat into a kind of heroic event) Hitler did not want to war against the British. He sure as hell didn’t want to fight them over the stupid Polish that refused any negotiation to stop killing Germans.
He thought this as a good will gesture would sooth things over. It didn’t. With US manpower and equipment and with the Germans busy dying, fighting the Russians on the eastern front the West barely managed the Normandy invasion and even that was extremely difficult. Without the Russians annihilating the Germans the West would have never succeeded.
Apparently these novel British “fighters” are not very smart. Everyone knows – even Hollywood movies – your cell location can be easily acquired and I imagine the Russians had intel on the ground and in space. It’s sad to have to kill a bunch of morons but sometimes you have to, to prevent the same from happening again.
The Ukrainian nazi’s calling those numbers would also know a strike would be forthcoming and those jerkoffs don’t mind killing their own people much less others.
It takes ones breath away watching the West rah rah-ing the Ukraine fascists using their own people as shields while blaming the Russians that are trying to clean up the US/West manufactured Ukraine mess.
Fascists are and always have been cowards only good at torture and killing their own people.
All you say is correct, but out of context. The tribe whose name must not be spoken, ha been in control of Britain for 200+ years and has been in control of the US for over 100 years. WWI was about privatizing Germany’s Central Bank, and WWII was about Hitler’s attempt to make the international banking cartel irrelevant.
Richard the Lion Heart threw the Yids out, but Cromwell let them back in to finance the English Civil War. Where is Richard Coeur de Lion when we need him ????
Too funny. I am just surprised it wasn’t Americans.
“At least 35 people were killed, potentially including three British ex-special forces troops…” with 30 cruise missiles, yep, sure the Russians do this all the time! Perhaps the author could explain who does he think is more stupid – the readers of his article or the Russian military?