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Comment by snake_doc | Hacker News Reader

WhatsApp was used by the Afghan Army to coordinate military communications and maneuvers. I wouldn't be surprised if other under-resourced military forces (i.e. Ukrainian) use it as a form of communications.

See this movie's footage for Afghan Army usage: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/retrograde_2022_2

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Afhanistan and the Ukraine both have a little less than 40M inhabitants. (Which is around half of germany, or like 20M less than France).

The Ukraine has/had a relevant IT-offshoring sector, from Wikipedia there's around 1/3 of the soviet military industry that was sitting there (including companies like Antonow)... and they had a few years of preparation since the krim was occupied where they knew that russian secret services would try to undermine any kind of communication infrastructure.

I doubt that they currently rely on WhatsApp for military communication...

It’s just “Ukraine” now btw. No “the”.

Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. What do you mean by "It's just Ukraine now". Was it always just Ukraine or hast that changed recently?

Edit: But thanks for the information :)

When people say "the Ukraine" it is taken to refer to Ukraine as a region rather than a country. I'm not 100% on why but the wording matters a lot.

Then again, the Afgan Army was never a model of competence

You mean the one that defeated two superpowers?

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