The Danish Defense Ministry has announced a new $13.2 million package for Ukraine that is intended to boost Kyiv's defenses against Russian cyber attacks.
In a press release on Wednesday, Denmark's Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that the new donation was "an important contribution to the long-term support for the strengthening of Ukraine's cyber defense." The NATO ally has been a leading force behind the Ukraine IT Coalition—a multi-country initiative first started by Estonia and Luxembourg in September 2023 to bolster Kyiv's cybersecurity in light of the Russian-Ukraine war.
"Since the beginning of the invasion, Denmark has been a significant contributor to the Ukrainian freedom struggle, this also applies in the cyber area," Poulsen added in the release. "We have on several occasions delivered donations that support the cyber defense and the critical IT infrastructure in Ukraine. It is therefore also natural that we contribute to the support of Ukraine in an area where we are already active."
Newsweek reached out to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense for more information via email.
The war between Russia and Ukraine has been fought on many fronts, including through hacking attempts by both countries to try to dismantle the other's military agencies. The United States announced last October that it was partnering with Demark to strengthen Kyiv's cyber security, which included a $2.8 million boost to the already-established USAID Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure in Ukraine initiative created by Washington as a way to mentor Kyiv's development of cyber resilience.
According to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, Russia has launched cyberattacks against Kyiv dating back to 2014, when Moscow illegally annexed the Crimea Peninsula. Such attacks have ramped up since the launch of Russia's invasion in February 2022, which have targeted Ukraine's "government institutions and critical infrastructure such as telecommunications, electricity, and data storage systems."
"Strengthening Ukraine's cyber capabilities is critical to protecting the country's institutions and infrastructure against the increased cyber attacks resulting from Russia's war," Bridget Brink, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, said in a release in October 2023.
Last month, Russian hackers infiltrated a private Ukrainian communications company that ended up leaving customers without phone or internet access for several days, according to Ukraine's Security Service (SBU). The hackers had reportedly gained access to the company's information dating back to May 2023 before launching the attack, and the disruption impacted nearly 24 million users in December.
"This attack is a big message, a big warning, not only to Ukraine, but for the whole Western world to understand that no one is actually untouchable," Illia Vitiuk, head of the SBU, said during an interview with Reuters earlier this month regarding the hack.
Ukraine has also launched successful cyber attacks against Moscow, including through the hacking group "Blackjack," which is connected to Kyiv's main spy agency. According to Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the hacking group was able to break into a Russian state company that is involved with military construction work, stealing more than 500 blueprints for Russian military sites in the process.
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