Pavel Polityuk

KYIV (Reuters: A huge cyberattack warned Ukrainians to “be fearful and expect the worse” on government websites on Thursday. It left some sites unaccessible by Friday morning. Kyiv has opened an investigation.

According to Reuters, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that it wasn’t too soon to determine who was behind the attack. However, he claimed Russia has been involved in similar attacks in the past.

As Kyiv and its allies raise alarm over a potential new Russian military attack against Ukraine, cyberattacks have hit the defense and security council as well the foreign ministry.

The foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters that it is too early to draw conclusion, but the record shows multiple Russian (cyber-) attacks against Ukraine in past years.

A request for comments from the Russian foreign ministry was not answered immediately. Russia denied previously being involved in cyber attacks against Ukraine.

“Ukrainian! Your personal information was all uploaded to the public internet. “All data on the computer has been destroyed and it’s impossible to recover it,” read the message on the hacker government website. It was written in Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish.

You can be fearful and prepared for anything. It is about your present, future and past.

HIGH TENSIONS

After a week of inconclusive discussions about security in Europe, Thursday’s warning by the United States was that there is a high possibility of Russia invading Ukraine.

Russia claimed that dialogue was ongoing, but it was at a dead stop as it attempted to convince the West to block Ukraine joining NATO. It also tried to stop decades of NATO expansion in Europe. These demands Washington called “nonstarters”.

A senior Ukrainian security official said that the Russian Federation had made cyberattacks known to him. These incidents are therefore dealt with as normal.

Later, the government stated that it had successfully restored many of the sites affected and that no personal information had been stolen. To stop the attack spreading further, a number of websites belonging to government agencies were suspended.

The annexation by Moscow of Crimea and subsequent outbreak of war in Ukraine between Kyiv’s forces, Russian-backed separatists and Kyiv in the same year caused a breakdown in relations between Russia’s Ukraine and Russia.

On Thursday, the United States claimed that Russia may be trying to use the Ukrainian situation as a pretext for launching a military attack on Ukraine. This was a comparison to 2014’s circumstances.

Russia warned that there could be “catastrophic” consequences if no deal is reached on security red lines, which the Kremlin calls. However, Moscow said it had not abandoned diplomacy and will even speed up its implementation.

Moscow’s comments show a trend of Moscow declaring it will pursue diplomacy, but refusing to reverse troop buildup in Ukraine. It also warned of unspecified implications for Western security if these demands are not met.

Since 2014, Ukraine has been the victim of a number of cyber-attacks. These attacks have disrupted power supply, frozen grocery tills and required authorities to rescue the currency hryvnia from banks that had their IT systems crash.

Ukraine says the Russians are waging a hybrid war on Ukraine and its allies.

Some experts call the virus NotPetya. In 2017 it struck Ukraine. The virus spread quickly, paralysing thousands and eventually reaching dozens of other countries.

Kremlin denies any involvement in the case, and rejects “unfounded blanket allegations”.