A Ukrainian cyber guerrilla warfare group plans to launch digital sabotage attacks against critical Russian infrastructure such as railways and the electricity grid, to strike back at Moscow over its invasion, a hacker team coordinator told Reuters.
Officials from Ukraine's defense ministry last week approached Ukrainian businessman and local cybersecurity expert Yegor Aushev to help organize a unit of hackers to defend against Russia, Reuters previously reported.
On Monday, Aushev said he planned to organize hacking attacks that would disrupt any infrastructure that helps bring Russian troops and weapons to his country.
"Everything that might stop war," he told Reuters. "The goal is to make it impossible to bring these weapons to our country."
Aushev said his group has already downed or defaced dozens of Russian government and banking websites, sometimes replacing content with violent images from the war. He declined to provide specific examples, saying it would make tracking his group easier for the Russians.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbor's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
A Ukrainian defense attache in Washington declined to comment on Aushev's group or its relationship with the defense ministry. Aushev said his group has so far grown to more than 1,000 Ukrainian and foreign volunteers.
