Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing. James Pearson

(Reuters) – Multiple cyber attacks by Russian hackers against Ukraine appeared to be in support of Moscow’s online propaganda and military strikes, Microsoft (NASDAQ) reported Wednesday.

These intrusions, some of them not disclosed previously, suggest that hacking played an even greater role than is publicly believed.

Researchers found that the digital assault, Microsoft claiming, began one year before Russia invaded Afghanistan on February 24, 2014.

    Between Feb. 23 and April 8, Microsoft said, it observed a total of 37 Russian destructive cyberattacks inside Ukraine.

Washington’s Russian Embassy did not respond to our request for comment immediately.

Experts said that the findings show how modern warfare can be combined digitally and kinetically.

    “Russian generals and spies have tried to make cyberattacks part of their war effort while they’ve struggled on the battlefield,” said Thomas Rid, a professor of Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

    Microsoft said Russia’s hacking and military operations worked in “tandem against a shared target set.” Microsoft claimed that it was unable to determine if this correlation is due to coordinated decision-making, or simply shared goals.

For example, a timeline published by Microsoft showed that on March 1 – the same day a Russian missile was fired at Kyiv’s TV tower – media companies in the capital were hit by destructive hacks and cyberespionage.

A second case was that the company’s cybersecurity researcher team found “suspected Russian actor” monitoring the Ukrainian critical infrastructure of Sumy in northeast Ukraine. It happened two weeks prior to widespread power shortages in this area.

    The next day, Microsoft said, Russian hackers broke into a government network in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia. A few days later, the airport in the city was attacked by missiles.

Victor Zhora is a senior Ukrainian cybersecurity officer who stated on Wednesday that Russian cyberattacks are still being carried out on Ukrainian telecom and energy companies.

Zhora stated that he believes they could organize additional attacks against these sectors. While we shouldn’t under-estimate Russian hackers, it is important to not underestimate their potential.

For their support in cybersecurity, he thanked Microsoft and the U.S government as well as multiple European allies.

Academics and analysts believe that Russia was less active in the Cyber Domain against Ukraine after the War began. Although the Microsoft report shows a lot of malicious cyber activity in many cases, its effect on Ukraine has not been immediately apparent.

    Two weeks ago the U.S. government publicly exposed a cyberweapon, known as Pipedream, that was designed to damage industrial control systems. The tool is not attributed to Russia but it has been described as extremely dangerous. Its discovery coincides closely with the Ukraine conflict.