Anonymous, the famed hacker collective, appeared to claim responsibility Sunday for the personal information of 120,000 Russian soldiers allegedly fighting in Ukraine being leaked last month.
The information included names, dates of birth, addresses, unit affiliation and passport numbers.
"All soldiers participating in the invasion of Ukraine should be subjected to a war crime tribunal," the group tweeted Sunday.
This week the Russian military has faced heightened scrutiny over alleged human rights abuses in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. Reports suggested civilians in the town were shot to death with their hands tied behind their backs, and corpses were spotted in yards, cars and streets.
The leak results first appeared in the Ukrainian news outlet Pravda on March 1, just days after the invasion of Ukraine began. The outlet did not disclose at the time where the information came from, only noting the "Centre for Defence Strategies acquired this data from reliable sources."
Statement: Personal data of 120,000 Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine was leaked -
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) April 3, 2022
https://ddosecrets[.]com/wiki/Russian_soldier_leak
All soldiers participating in the invasion of Ukraine should be subjected to a war crime tribunal.
On Sunday the "hactivist" group, which rose to notoriety for its hacks on governments, corporations and other groups, condemned the Russian invasion before claiming the leak.
"We're all witnessing the evils Russia is doing," it tweeted. "It's going to take a very long time to accept Russia back into the human race after all the crimes it's committed via Putin."
Anonymous has claimed responsibility for other hacks on the Russian government since the invasion began at the end of February. The group said it hacked into unsecured printers in Russia to spread anti-propaganda messages, as state-run media within the country has promoted and defended the war.
Messages sent to the printers included a warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin and Russian media were lying about the invasion and gave instructions on how to access a browser that would allow Russian citizens to bypass the country's censorship.
The group also said it took down the Kremlin's official website and tweeted that it had "ongoing operations to keep .ru government websites offline, and to push information to the Russian people so they can be free of Putin's state censorship machine." It apparently hacked more than 2,500 Russian government, media and bank websites, Russian TV channels and security cameras at military bases as well.
It also threatened it would "not be kind" to Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, after she said Ukrainians are fighting a "war [against Russia] they cannot win."
Newsweek reached out to the Russian foreign ministry for comment Sunday afternoon but did not hear back by publication. This story will be updated with any response.
This story and its headline were updated to make clear the leak occurred last month, whereas the group's tweet posted on Sunday.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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