The bitskrieg that was and wasn’t: the military and intelligence implications of cyber operations during Russia’s war on Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The Russian war on Ukraine presents a multifaceted landscape for the analysis of the cyber dimensions of contemporary war and their strategic, operational, and tactical impacts. While the long-anticipated disabling and devastating cyber blitzkrieg did not happen at the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the persistent utilization of a variety of cyber tools by both sides in this war points to the hybrid warfare strategy taking place not only on the ground but also in cyberspace. Cyberattacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure, governmental entities and different parts of the economy have been a constant feature in Ukraine’s struggle to maintain its national security. These cyberattacks had a varying level of success. Yet, their role in the Russia–Ukraine war is still not fully understood or extensively studied. This work analyses cyber incidents from the first period of conflict, starting in November 2013 until 23 February 2022, and examines their objective and subjective impacts at the domestic and the international levels. This work also reviews the post-escalation period starting from 24 February 2022, using the data collected directly from the publicly available Ukrainian governmental sources and international cyber firms. This work aims to address the role and impact of cyber operations in an ongoing Russia–Ukraine war on both the people, networked systems, and other physical contests of warfare and the soldiers in the trenches is the principal subject of this article.

KEYWORDS:

• Cyber
• war
• Ukraine
• Russia
• cybersecurity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

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2. Borghard and Lonergan, ”The Logic of Coercion in Cyberspace.”

3. Valeriano, Jensen, and Maness, Cyber Strategy: The Evolving Character of Power and Coercion.

4. Slayton, ”What Is the Cyber Offense-Defense Balance? Conceptions, Causes, and Assessment.”

5. Egloff, Semi-State Actors in Cybersecurity.

6. Beehner et al., ”Analyzing the Russian Way of War.”

7. Shakarian, ”The 2008 Russian Cyber Campaign Against Georgia.”

8. Korns and Kastenberg, ”Georgia’s Cyber Left Hook.”

9. Temple-Raston, ”How The U.S. Hacked ISIS.”

10. Browne and Starr, ”Top Pentagon Official: ‘Right Now It Sucks’ to Be ISIS.”.

11. Lee, ”The Impact of Cyber Capabilities in the Syrian Civil War.”

12. Harvey, ”The Levels of War as Levels of Analysis.”

13. Brantly, ”From Cyberspace to Independence Square: Understanding the Impact of Social Media on Physical Protest Mobilization During Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution.”

14. Onuch and Sasse, ”The Maidan in Movement: Diversity and the Cycles of Protest”; Shveda and Park, ”Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity: The Dynamics of Euromaidan.”

15. Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine : Crisis in the Borderlands.

16. Galeotti, “’Hybrid War’ And ‘Little Green Men’: How It Works and How It Doesn’t”.

17. Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom : Russia, Europe, America.

18. Fitzgerald and Brantly, ”Subverting Reality: The Role of Propaganda in 21st Century Intelligence.”

19. Brantly, ”A Brief History of Fake : Surveying Russian Disinformation from the Russian Empire through the Cold War to the Present.”

20. Kuzio, ”Competing Nationalisms, Euromaidan, and the Russian‐Ukrainian Conflict”; Pop-Eleches and Robertson, ”Identity and Political Preferences in Ukraine – before and after the Euromaidan.”

21. Brantly, ”Battling the Bear: Ukraine’s Approach to National Cyber and Information Security.”

22. Haigh, Haigh, and Kozak, ”Stopping Fake News.”

23. Pervushyn, ”The Impact of Censoring and Filtering Practices in The Ukrainian Internet on Ukraine’s International Image in Context of Russian Military Aggression.”

24. Ibid.

25. Brantly and Brantly, ”Biopolitics: Power, Pandemics, and War.”

26. Koval, ”Revolution Hacking.”

27. Coker and Sonne, ”Ukraine: Cyberwar’s Hottest Front.”

28. Maschmeyer, ”The Subversive Trilemma: Why Cyber Operations Fall Short of Expectations.”

29. Baezner, ”Cyber and Information Warfare in the Ukrainian Conflict.”

30. Zetter, ”Inside the Cunning, Unprecedented Hack of Ukraine’s Power Grid | WIRED.”

31. Whitehead et al., ”Ukraine Cyber-Induced Power Outage: Analysis and Practical Mitigation Strategies.”

32. Greenberg, Sandworm : A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers.

33. Brantly, ”Risk and Uncertainty Can Be Analyzed in Cyberspace.”

34. Garamone, ”Ukraine-California Ties Show Worth of National Guard Program”; ”NATO’s Support to Ukraine.”

35. Sood and Hurley, ”NotPetya Ransomware Attack Technical Analysis: A Triple Threat: File Encryption, MFT Encryption, Credential Theft.”

36. Greenberg, ”The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History.”

37. ”Use of Fancy Bear Android Malware in Tracking of Ukrainian Field Artillery Units.”

38. Ibid.

39. Brantly, Cal, and Winkelstein, ”Defending the Borderland: Ukrainian Military Experiences with IO, Cyber, and EW.”

40. Paganini, ”Following NotPetya NATO Increases Support for Ukraine’s Cyber Defenses.”

41. Kostyuk and Brantly, ”War in the Borderland through Cyberspace: Limits of Defending Ukraine through Interstate Cooperation.”

42. Brantly, ”Battling the Bear: Ukraine’s Approach to National Cyber and Information Security.”

43. Dylan, Gioe, and Grossfeld, ”The Autocrat’s Intelligence Paradox: Vladimir Putin’s(Mis)Management of Russian Strategic Assessment in TheUkraine War.”

44. Brandt, ”Preempting Putin: Washington’s Campaign of Intelligence Disclosures Is Complicating Moscow’s Plans for Ukraine.”

45. Brantly, ”Narrative Battles: The Impact of Open-Source Intelligence on the Framing of Russian War in Ukraine.”

46. ”Cyberattack on Government Websites.”

47. ”U.S. Support for Connectivity and Cybersecurity in Ukraine.”

48. Corera, ”Inside a US Military Cyber Team’s Defence of Ukraine.”

49. Ibid.

50. Neuman, ”Ukraine Is Hit by a Massive Cyberattack That Targeted Government Websites.”

51. ”Defending Ukraine:Early Lessons from the Cyber War.”

52. Zetter, ”Viasat Hack ‘Did Not’ Have Huge Impact on Ukrainian Military Communications, Official Says”.

53. Burgess, ”A Mysterious Satellite Hack Has Victims Far Beyond Ukraine.”

54. ”Internet Disruptions Registered as Russia Moves in on Ukraine.”

55. ”Strengthening Cybersecurity of SATCOM Network Providers and Customers.”

56. ”Attack Details.”

57. Brantly, The Decision to Attack: Military and Intelligence Cyber Decision-Making.

58. Lonergan, ”Cyberspace Is Neither Just an Intelligence Contest, nor a Domain of Military Conflict; SolarWinds Shows Us Why It’s Both.”

59. Brantly, The Decision to Attack: Military and Intelligence Cyber Decision-Making.

60. Cyber Peace Institute, ”Attack Details.”

61. Ibid.

62. Egloff, Semi-State Actors in Cybersecurity; Maurer, Cyber Mercenaries : The State, Hackers, and Power; Maurer, ”Cyber Proxies and the Crisis in Ukraine.”

63. ”Pro-Russian Hacktivist Groups Target Ukraine Supporters.”

64. Cyber Peace Institute, ”Attack Details.”

65. Some attacks are attributed to more than one threat actor and possibly indicate state-proxy actor coordination.

66. Brantly, ”CERT-UA Public Disclosures of Cyber Attacks.”

67. Ibid.

68. ”2022 (Q1) Report on the Performance of the Vulnerability Detection and Cyber Incident Response System.”

69. ”2023 Performance Report of the Vulnerability Detection and Cyber Incidents/Cyber Attacks Response System.”

70. ”2022 Report on Vulnerability Detection and Cyber Incidents/Cyber Attacks Response System.”

71. ”2023 Performance Report of the Vulnerability Detection and Cyber Incidents/Cyber Attacks Response System.”

72. Ibid.

73. Kostyuk and Gartzke, ”Indirect Substitution of Cyber and Military Operations: Why Cyber Dogs Have yet to Bark Loudly in Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.”

74. Schulze and Kerttunen, ”Cyber Operations in Russia’sWar against Ukraine.”

75. Pietsch, ”Hacking Group Claims Control of Belarusian Railroads in Move to ‘Disrupt’ Russian Troops Heading near Ukraine”.

76. Barnes et al., ”Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts and Russia’s Military Struggles.”

77. Brantly, ”Forged in the Fires of War: The Rise of a New Ukrainian Identity.”

78. Thomson et al., ”European Public Opinion: Uniting in Supporting Ukraine, Divided on the Future of NATO.”

79. Mueller et al., ”Cyber Operations During the Russo-Ukrainian War.”

80. Lindsay, ”Cyber Conflict vs. Cyber Command: Hidden Dangers in the American Military Solution to a Large-Scale Intelligence Problem.”

81. Kostyuk and Gartzke, ”Fighting in Cyberspace: Internet Access and the Substitutability of Cyber and Military Operations.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron F. Brantly

Aaron Brantly is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Tech4Humanity Lab at Virginia Tech. He is the author or editor of four books The Decision to Attack: Military and Intelligence Cyber Decision-making, US National Cybersecurity: International Politics, Concepts and Organization, Cybersecurity: Politics, Governance and Conflict in Cyberspace, and The Cyber Deterrence Problem and multiple peer-reviewed articles on national and international cyberconflict, information operations, big data and intelligence.

Nataliya D. Brantly

Nataliya Brantly is an Assistant Professor in the Government and International Affairs (GIA) Program within the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at Virginia Tech. She is also serving as a Program Director for the Eastern Partnership Research Program at the Center for European & Transatlantic Studies (CEUTS), a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, and a Deputy Director for Health Technologies at the Tech4Humanity Lab.