Russian hackers knock millions of Ukrainians offline

A woman walks past a store of Ukraine's telecommunications company Kyivstar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 12, 2023.
A woman walks past a store of Ukraine's telecommunications company Kyivstar, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine December 12, 2023.
REUTERS/Alina Smutko

Russian ground forces haven’t made much progress in Ukraine. Nearly two years after an invasion that was supposed to quickly and easily deliver Kyiv to Kremlin control, the Russian military controls just 18% of Ukraine’s territory and must resort to embarrassing stunts to keep adding new soldiers to the fight. Moscow, for example, is offering foreign nationals Russian citizenship in exchange for fighting in Ukraine.

But you might have missed this story about the true Russian talent that can still dramatically change the game for Ukraine and its allies. Ukraine's head of cybersecurity told Reuters this week that Russian hackers managed to burrow into Kyivstar, Ukrainian biggest telecoms company, as of May 2023, and knocked 24 million users offline for several days last month. In the process, it also wiped clean thousands of virtual servers and personal computers. The spy chief says the attack was probably the work of Sandworm, a Russian military intelligence cyber warfare unit with a long history of successful strikes.

This story reminds us of two important points: Ukrainian officials continue to make the case in Western media that Russia can do to others what it has done in Ukraine, and Russia still wields formidable, sophisticated unconventional weapons that bolster its struggling conventional forces.

More from GZERO Media

- YouTube

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man by far. He runs multiple companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly Twitter), with business interests all over the world. So why would the tech billionaire want to spend so much of his time focused on the complicated and often tedious work of overhauling the federal government through his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)?

Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025.
REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

15: Fifteen Palestinian medics who went missing last week were apparently killed by Israeli forces and buried in an impromptu mass grave along with their ambulances, according to the UN.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS) appointed Saudi Prime Minister, in a government shuffling announced by a Royal Decree, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on September 24, 2022.
Balkis Press/ABACAPRESS.COM

After cutting Saudi oil production beginning in late 2022 to set a floor under slumping global oil prices, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is set to change course.

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.
THOMAS SAMSON/Pool via REUTERS

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty by a French court on Monday for embezzling European Parliament funds, and faces a five-year ban from running for public office.

President Donald Trump holds an executive order about tariffs while flanked by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the Oval Office on Feb. 13, 2025.

REUTERS/File Photo

Donald Trump argues that any short-term pain from his global tariffs will translate into long-term gain as businesses move their operations to the US. He plans to announce a sweeping new round of tariffs on April 2. We asked Eurasia Group expert Nancy Wei what to expect from what Trump is billing as a “Liberation Day” from an unfair global trading system.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National party, leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.

REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq

Oh là là! A French court on Monday found National Rally leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misappropriating European funds to her far-right party, and barred the three-time presidential candidate barred from running for office for the next five years. Le Pen has denied wrongdoing and said last November, “It’s my political death that’s being demanded.”