Occupiers of the "DNR" fear that local residents will "light up" information on the movement and deployment of units of the "people's police" (self-designation of the illegal armed formations - OstroV) through social networks. This follows from the memo spread in separatist media and on the websites of the "people's police".
The memo appeared after the announcement of high-alert mode of the illegal armed formations by the "DNR" leader Denis Pushilin.
In it, the occupiers ask "not to disseminate information about the movement of units of the "people's police" on the Internet". The memo contains a warning reminder that the dissemination of such information would be regarded as "helping the enemy".
Militants fear that the publication of photos and videos of their military equipment on social networks will make it easy to identify specific units and track their movement using geolocation.
As a source in the "people's militia" told OstroV, a significant part of the information on movement and deployment of the "DNR" illegal armed formations that appears on the Web is a form of protest by the local population against the occupation authorities.
As previously reported, a practice of "conviction" of allegedly "Ukrainian spies" for long periods of imprisonment on charges of photographing equipment and military personnel of the so-called "people's police" appeared in the "DNR". In particular, it became known on May 15 that the "DNR" occupation authorities announced that they had sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment allegedly a "Ukrainian spy" - Viktor Utkin, a resident of Volnovakha, Donetsk oblast, born in 1961, was accused that being in Volnovakha in Novenber 2015, "he agreed to secret cooperation with the Ukrainian special services due to psychological pressure". The "DNR" states that Utkin collected and transmitted information on the socio-political situation in CADO, as well as military information, to the SBU. In addition, he is charged with the fact that at the end of 2016, he assisted former servicewoman of the internal troops of the DNR MIA" Liubov Pinkevich in returning to the territory controlled by Ukraine under the program "Return Home".