On March 1, the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda published names and personal information that it said belonged to 120,000 Russian troops fighting in Ukraine. The information came from the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian security think tank, the news outlet reported. In late March, Ukraine’s military intelligence service leaked the names and personal data of 620 people it said were officers with Russia’s F.S.B.
And in early April, the military intelligence service published the personal information of Russian soldiers it claimed were responsible for war crimes in Bucha, a suburb where investigators say Russian troops waged a campaign of terror against civilians.
“All war criminals will be brought to justice for crimes committed against the civilian population of Ukraine,” the military intelligence service said in a statement on its website that accompanied the Bucha data dump. (Russia has denied responsibility for the Bucha killings.)
Russian state-backed hackers have also carried out a number of cyberattacks in Ukraine since the war began, targeting government agencies, communications infrastructure and utility companies. They have largely relied on destructive malware to erase data and disrupt the operations of critical infrastructure companies, but they have occasionally used hack-and-leak tactics.
In late February, a group calling itself Free Civilian began to leak personal information that purportedly belonged to millions of Ukrainian civilians. Although the group posed as a collective of “hacktivists,” or people using their cyberskills to further their political ends, it actually operated as a front for Russian state-backed hackers, according to researchers at CrowdStrike. The hack-and-leak operation was intended to sow distrust in Ukraine’s government and its ability to secure citizens’ data, the researchers said.
Hackers affiliated with Russia and Belarus have also targeted news media companies and Ukrainian military officials in an effort to spread disinformation about a surrender by Ukraine’s military.
But much of Russia’s hacking efforts have focused on damaging critical infrastructure. Last week, Ukrainian officials said they had interrupted a Russian cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid that could have knocked out power to two million people. The G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence unit, was responsible for the attack, Ukraine’s security and intelligence service said.