After numerous setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, the Russians are escalating cyberattacks on civilian services such as electricity and the Internet, a new offensive designed to break the will of ordinary citizens and turn the tide of the war..

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While Russia has relied more on missile strikes than cyber weapons to achieve its goals in Ukraine, the attacks on energy, government and transport infrastructure clusters show that cyber attacks are still a key part of Moscow's overall strategy in attempting to occupy.

The pace of cyberattacks against Ukraine has been relentless over the past 12 months. While the attacks have been directed at military installations - like the widely condemned attack on the Ukrainian satellite company Viasat at the beginning of the war that disrupted Ukrainian military communications - hackers are even more targeting critical utilities that are used in daily life..

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2000 cyber attacks per year.

According to statistics from the Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team provided by POLITICO, over 2,000 cyberattacks were carried out against Ukrainian organizations in 2022. While over 300 attacks targeted the security and defense sector, over 400 attacks targeted groups that impact civilian lives, including organizations in the commercial, energy, financial, telecommunications, and software sectors.. More than 500 other attacks were directed against government groups.

A recent report by the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine found that while the pace of cyberattacks against Ukraine slowed overall from September to December 2022, these attacks increasingly targeted government services and energy rather than military targets..

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Moscow is trying to make these attacks as psychologically difficult as possible for Ukrainians, insiders say. In a December report, Microsoft warned that the Kremlin was coordinating cyber attacks and missile strikes against Ukraine's energy and water groups, and these devastating cyber attacks could spread to countries such as neighboring Poland and private companies providing aid to Ukraine.. These include organizations providing humanitarian aid.

The attacks included a failed attempt targeting an electrical substation that would have resulted in power outages for millions of Ukrainians, an incident terribly similar to previous successful Russian-related attacks in 2015 and 2016 that cut power to parts of Ukraine.. These two previous attacks took place in the dead of winter, likely causing maximum discomfort for the Ukrainians, a tactic Russia continues to pursue during the current cold months..

“We have seen the Russians target civilian infrastructure in a failed attempt to undermine the will of the Ukrainians to fight,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va. ) in a statement provided by POLITICO.

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Russian hackers have successfully compromised groups in the emergency, transportation and communications sectors, and targeted surveillance cameras to potentially inform troop movements. He stressed that while general cyberattacks did not have such a massive impact as was thought before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this is not due to a lack of effort on the part of Moscow..