NATO increasing cyberattacks against Russia

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Faced with the defeat of its Ukrainian proxy on the battlefield, NATO cyber troops escalate anti-Russian sabotage. Writes Lucas Leiroz

The cyber environment has become a real battlefield in the conflict between Russia and the West. Recently, NATO cyber troops have been escalating their anti-Russian campaign as part of the broader fight against Moscow in the current conflict. As well as in battles of the physical world, the Atlantic alliance also often uses Ukrainians as proxies, with several attacks by Kiev’s hackers having occurred. However, Russia seems to have control over the situation.

The Russian hacker group RaHDit published on its website a report on the attacks that Moscow has been suffering from Western cyber forces. Information was revealed about more than 100 NATO officers who would be involved in attempts to launch cyber-weapons against Russian web domains. According to spokespersons for the group, there is an international network of cyber-agents operating in NATO countries and allied states, but there is an attempt by NATO high-ranking officers to disguise the attacks and make them appear as maneuvers of exclusively Ukrainian responsibility.

The network operates under the central direction of the alliance, which establishes cyberwar bases in countries close to Russia, mainly Poland and the Baltics. In these centers, Ukrainian hackers are trained to carry out the war plans established by NATO, obeying Washington’s orders in the same way as in the battles outside the cyber world. The main proxy organizations involved in such operations are the hacker groups IT Army of Ukraine and Save UA – both formed by Ukrainian cyber soldiers but commanded and financed by Western important officers.

The aim of recruiting Ukrainian hackers, according to RaHDit spokespersons, is to foster a structure of action in which the real architects of the crimes – NATO agents – appear innocent, with only Kiev’s citizens acting on the front lines of the attacks. When Russian investigations are done, Ukrainian hackers are often the easiest ones to discover, with deeper efforts needed in order to find the “real culprits” – the Western officials who mentor and train the Ukrainians. With this, Ukraine seems to be once again subjected by NATO to a role of “proxy” on the battlefield against Russia.

“It is the NATO centers that are really behind the cyberattacks while employees of Ukrainian security forces and community activists act only as a cover (…) [Ukrainian hacker groups] have to create the appearance that Ukrainians are doing it themselves (…) [but NATO has] people behind their backs who show them what they should be doing, who guide them, and they often themselves engage in active activities in cyberspace (…) As for now, it is not Ukraine that is fighting against us in cyberspace but all NATO countries. They have been training Ukrainian specialists for a very long time, and they have established cyber centers in the Baltic and Poland. Ukrainians came to these cyber centers to learn. Now there are being coordinated and managed from these cyber centers”, a RaHDit member told a Russian media outlet on December 29.

While RaHDit’s current focus is on investigating the NATO structure behind Kiev’s hacker army, the group also remains concerned with identifying as many Ukrainian cyber fighters as possible. The day before the publication of data on NATO officers, Russian hackers had also published a new list, with information on more than 70 Ukrainian citizens who are part of the alliance’s cyberwar centers. RaHDit members even wrote on the group’s Telegram channel that there are thousands of other data yet to be revealed, with a continuous movement of hackers joining the anti-Russian campaign in Ukraine and in other parts of the world.

“In reality, there are far more people who are joining this movement. It is not a thousand, not two thousands, but far more. They are working not just in Ukraine, but from all over the world”, they wrote.

Indeed, these efforts in the cyber world by NATO and its neo-Nazi proxy are normal. Today, cyberspace is recognized by military experts as a regular battleground, with all the world’s armed forces maintaining cyberwar centers. Intelligence operations to obtain data on enemy forces largely depend on the use of cyber weapons, which is why it is normal for this type of situation to occur in a high-intensity conflict like the current one.

In addition, as the Ukrainian forces lose space on the “real” battlefield, with a military scenario absolutely favorable to Moscow, what “remains” for Kiev and its NATO mentors is simply to escalate cybernetic activities, trying to gain some kind of advantage in the conflict, either through the leak of sensitive data, or through sabotage against strategic Russian sites and domains.

Even so, Russia seems to have control over the cyber situation. With the data obtained by hackers, many actions are prepared in order to neutralize the opposing forces. In July, RaDHit members had already published data on more than 2500 hackers linked to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which made a series of counterintelligence operations possible. The fact that there have been no reports of major damage to Russian cyber infrastructure in recent months, despite NATO efforts, shows that the situation is stable.

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