Russia has spent tens of billions of rubles on secure military radios, yet its soldiers in Ukraine are still going into the field with cheap Chinese sets, including analogue radios Ukrainian forces can readily intercept.
The Radios in the Field
Russian Ministry of Defence footage from 16 to 30 October 2026 exposes the state of Russian tactical communications. The radios visible on soldiers in those official videos are mostly TYT digital handhelds, nicknamed “tuts” by Russian troops, alongside cheaper Baofeng analogue sets known as “bafiks.”
The Russian military commentator Mine Division assembled the examples and made a devastating point. The cheapest civilian DMR equipment has effectively become the Russian army’s main tactical radio standard. Soldiers are relying on devices they bought themselves or obtained through improvised channels.
A digital label does not turn a civilian handheld into a secure military communications system. The Baofeng analogue radios present an even more immediate problem. Their unencrypted traffic is readily interceptable by Ukrainian forces. Units must coordinate movement, artillery and drones in combat, and failing to do so carries real consequences. It puts battlefield conversations within an adversary’s reach.
The setting makes the finding harder for Moscow to dismiss. These are the Ministry of Defence’s own promotional videos, featuring Russian troops at work across different positions. Even when it chooses what the public sees, the equipment on their vests tells a different story from the procurement promises.
The Radio That Did Not Arrive
Russia’s Ministry of Defence had designated the Tukta as its principal tactical radio for the war in Ukraine. According to Mine Division, it was never actually procured. Instead of a fielded standard supplied through the military, troops have patched together their own supply of inexpensive handhelds.
A command failure here comes with a procurement trail behind it. An army can buy individual radios quickly. It cannot assemble a dependable, secure tactical network by leaving each unit or soldier to find whatever happens to be available. Different sets in the same force may keep people talking. But they are no substitute for a system built and supplied for military use.
Russia has no functioning tactical communications system worthy of the name, only stopgaps.
Mine Division’s verdict is severe. The commentator asks what Moscow’s claims of readiness for a war with NATO are worth when its soldiers in Ukraine are still communicating this way.
Where the Money Went
Russia did not fail to recognise the requirement or allocate money for it. The Ministry of Defence spent tens of billions of rubles on programmes including the R-168 Akveduk tactical radio and the sixth-generation R-187P1 Azart. Relatively few of those secure sets reached soldiers.
The corruption cases help explain the gulf between budget lines and equipment in the field:
- In one substitution scam, Chinese radios were falsely relabelled as Russian equipment, costing the Ministry of Defence 2.2 billion rubles, about $28.5 million.
- General Khalil Arslanov, the former head of Russia’s Main Communications Directorate, stole another 6.7 billion rubles, about $87 million, and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Those figures represent real financial losses. Money assigned to military communications was diverted while Russian soldiers ended up buying or scrounging civilian radios for a battlefield where communications security matters every day. The state paid for sophisticated programmes. The troops received “tuts” and, in some cases, openly interceptable “bafiks”.
This ugly form of Russian military corruption makes the people ordered to fight carry the consequences while the officials who controlled the contracts walk free. The Ministry of Defence can keep filming soldiers beside artillery and drones. It cannot edit the procurement failure off their vests.