Ukraine's military intelligence on Monday reported it had successfully hacked into the Russian Defense Ministry's servers, gaining access to various officials' classified documents.
"Now the Ukrainian special service owns the software for information protection and encryption, which was used by the Russian Defense Ministry, as well as an array of secret service documentation of the Russian Ministry of War," Ukraine's military intelligence directorate (GUR) announced in a post on its official Telegram channel.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have engaged in cyberattacks throughout the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022. Two of the most high-profile instances came in recent months when Ukraine experienced nationwide communication outages after Russian hackers infiltrated Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest telecommunications provider. A month later, GUR said its cyber hackers had taken down a "special communications" served used by Russia's defense ministry.
According to GUR's Monday post, the recently captured data helped its agents identify the command of Russia's defense ministry.
"The information obtained allows us to establish the complete structure of the system of the Russian Ministry of Defense and its units," GUR wrote.
GUR's message noted it gained access to official documents belonging to Timur Ivanov, Russia's deputy defense minister and former deputy governor of the Moscow Oblast.
The agency also mockingly credited Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for the cyber operation.
"Shoigu played an important role in the success of the cyberattack," GUR wrote next to a handshake emoji.
Newsweek could not verify the authenticity of GUR's report of the hacking, and the Russian Ministry of Defense was contacted via email on Monday for comment.
Although Kyiv's intelligence agency did not share specific details about the information it reportedly accessed during the recent hack, GUR said it had obtained various orders, reports, instructions and other documents that circulated among more than 2,000 structural units in Russia's Defense Ministry.
"The work in Russian cyberspace aimed at obstructing and paralyzing the activities of law enforcement agencies and officials of the aggressor state responsible for the war against the Ukrainian people continues. To be continued!" GUR wrote.
Monday's announcement from GUR comes a little less than a month after it similarly claimed success in a cyberattack that reportedly affected Russia's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
GUR said on February 8 that an operation by its cyber specialists resulted in a "massive failure" of Russia's drone program. The agency said hackers caused software used for UAVs to malfunction, which made it "probably impossible to control drones from remote controls."
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Jon Jackson is an Associate Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more
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