Russian-Linked Cyberattacks Hit Ukraine and Spill Into Wider European Targets

Ukrainian government, military, banking, and energy targets were repeatedly disrupted by cyber operations tied to Russia and the war around Ukraine. Reports describe attacks on a Ukrainian power station, outages affecting the websites of Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks, and broader disruptive activity against the country’s financial sector. The UK government later said technical analysis by the National Cyber Security Centre assessed that Russia’s GRU was almost certainly involved in the February 2022 distributed denial-of-service attacks on Ukrainian banking targets, framing the incidents as part of continued Russian aggression.

The campaign also expanded beyond Ukraine through both state-linked and pro-Russian actors. Killnet, a Russia-aligned hacktivist group, claimed retaliatory DDoS attacks on Lithuanian government and business websites after restrictions affecting transit to Kaliningrad, while other reporting said Russian-backed actors continued destructive operations against Ukraine, including wiper malware and attempted power-grid attacks. At the same time, pro-Ukrainian hackers mounted hack-and-leak operations against Russian institutions, underscoring how the conflict evolved into a broader regional cyber confrontation affecting governments, critical infrastructure, and financial services.