“The United States joins with allies and partners in condemning Russia’s destructive cyber activities against Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Tuesday. The cyber attack on a satellite network of the US-based telecommunications company Viasat is one of the most momentous cyber incidents of the war in Ukraine. Communications in Ukraine were cut an hour before Russia’s full-scale invasion, according to an EU statement, and collateral damage included the shutdown of thousands of wind turbines in Germany that depended on the satellite network. A senior Ukrainian cyber official, Victor Zhora, on March 15 described the hack as “a really huge loss of communications right at the start of the war.” The primary target of the hack “was believed to be the Ukrainian military,” Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Tuesday, leading up to and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to Microsoft analysts, the pre-invasion hacks may have been an attempt by the Kremlin to extort concessions from the Ukrainian government. The State Department also provided more details on Tuesday about how the US government is trying to help Kyiv stave off a spate of suspected Russian hacks.
Contractors from the U.S. Agency for International Development “are providing hands-on assistance” to Ukrainian government agencies and critical infrastructure to identify malicious software and bring systems back online, the department said. Meanwhile, the FBI has briefed Ukrainian officials on Russian intelligence agencies’ hacking operations and received leads on cyber threats, which the State Department says the FBI should investigate.
CNN has reached out to the Russian Embassy in Washington for comment.
The cyberattack was “another example of Russia’s continued irresponsible behavior in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” the European Council said in a statement.