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Ukraine war latest: Russian hackers trying to ‘destroy UK infrastructure’ – and ‘everyone’ needs to be aware of threat
Kremlin hackers are seeking to “disrupt or destroy” Britain’s critical infrastructure, the government has said – amid a warning Russia is planning to hit the power supply in four Nordic countries. Listen to a Daily podcast special on the Pentagon leaks while you scroll.
Wednesday 19 April 2023 17:45, UK
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Russia
Ukraine
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Key points
Russian hackers trying to ‘disrupt or destroy’ UK infrastructure View post
Everyone needs to be aware of the threat | Michael Clarke View post
Putin visit to Ukraine was to ‘identify scapegoats’ before Kyiv’s spring offensive View post
Russia ‘planning to sabotage Nordic countries power supply’ View post
The ominous reason Russia may not let jailed US reporter go View post
Inside the notorious Moscow prison housing US journalist View post
Putin ‘could use tactical nuclear weapons in managed escalation’, US warns View post
Live reporting by Katie Williams and (earlier) Guy Birchall
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2m ago
13:05
Why is this Ukraine’s national flower?
In our previous post we reported that land in eastern Ukraine is being demined to make way for sunflowers.
The country’s national flower has become a symbol of peace and resistance – especially during Russia’s invasion.
Millions of acres of Ukrainian land are dedicated to sunflowers and sunflower oil, and Ukraine has been the world’s leading exporter of sunflower oil for years.
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28m ago
12:35
Ukrainian fields demined – to make way for sunflowers
Specialists have been demining agricultural land in eastern Ukraine this week to make way for the growing of sunflowers – the country’s national flower.
Dnipro governor Serhii Lysak said on Telegram that 2,645 hectares of land was examined in the region’s Kryvorizka district, with nearly 250 “enemy” shells “destroyed”.
“As soon as the land dries up after the rains, agrarians will take over their work front. Mostly, sunflowers will be sown there. The main thing is to work safely,” he wrote.
Mr Lysak says 6,000 explosive objects have been defused across Dnipro since the start of the war.
“Demining of pyrotechnics continues even today. Unfortunately, they still have a lot of work to do. And the aggressor adds to it every day, shelling our peaceful towns and villages,” he added.
Pic: Serhii Lysak/Telegram
Pic: Serhii Lysak/Telegram
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48m ago
12:15
Germany ‘sends second air defence system’ to Kyiv
Ukraine has received the second of four promised air defence systems from Germany, according to a report.
German news site Der Spiegel reports that the Iris-T anti-aircraft missile system was delivered to Kyiv three days ago.
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov confirmed the first system was delivered in October 2022, but there has been no official confirmation of another delivery.
The ground-based systems pledged by Germany – estimated to cost €150m (£132m) apiece – have helped Kyiv protect its territory from missile and drone attacks.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko has previously praised the efficiency of Iris-T.
“100 shots – 100 hits,” he said in late December.
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1h ago
12:00
Sweden hopes to join NATO by July, foreign minister says
Sweden’s foreign minister Tobias Billstrom says there are hopes that his country can join NATO by the time of a summit of the alliance in July.
Speaking during a meeting with his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic in Belgrade, Mr Billstrom said Sweden “will be a security provider for the organisation and it is clear that we are welcome”.
“We are very, very hopeful for the inclusion of Sweden into NATO at the Vilnius summit.”
Sweden and its neighbour Finland both applied to join NATO in May 2022, setting aside years of military nonalignment to seek protection under the organisation’s security umbrella.
Finland officially became a member earlier this month after its application was processed in record time.
But Sweden’s bid is still on hold due to opposition from Turkey and Hungary.
The two countries will be encouraged by the US to ratify Sweden’s accession, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a visit to Sweden today.
He said the US looks forward to welcoming Sweden as a NATO member before the July summit.
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
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1h ago
11:40
Ukraine accuses Moscow of ‘provocation’ over Bakhmut claim
Claims by Russia that Ukrainian forces blew up four buildings in Bakhmut and killed 20 civilians has been labelled a “provocation” by Ukraine’s military.
Russian state-run news agency TASS quoted an unnamed source from Russian-backed forces in the eastern Donetsk region as making the claim earlier today.
They alleged that Kyiv’s troops blew up the buildings as they withdrew from the outskirts of the embattled city.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military, said “this is another Russian information provocation with the goal of… distracting [attention] from the crimes of the Wagner terrorist organisation”.
The Wagner mercenary group has been spearheading the assault on Bakhmut, where some of the fiercest fighting of the war has taken place.
“Ukrainian service members absolutely adhere to all rules
and doctrines of war fighting [and] never violate either
national nor international law, especially regarding civilians,” Mr Cherevatyi added.
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1h ago
11:20
Delivering goods to annexed regions ‘problematic’, says Putin
Vladimir Putin says that delivering goods to regions of Ukraine by Russia last year is “problematic”, and ordered the government to address the problem.
Mr Putin visited Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Kherson regions on Monday, according to the Kremlin.
The Russian president attended briefings with his military brass on both of his stops.
The locations of the military headquarters weren’t disclosed, making it impossible to assess how close they were to the front line.
Earlier we reported that this visit could have been to establish potential scapegoats, should an expected counteroffensive in the region fail.
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2h ago
11:00
‘Complex measures’ of Ukraine’s counteroffensive ‘already under way’
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has reportedly said that “complex measures” of Kyiv’s counteroffensive are “already under way” in the east.
According to the Kyiv Independent, Hanna Maliar made the comments on Ukrainian national television today.
The minister said the counteroffensive can’t be concentrated to specific dates and actions.
Ms Maliar added that it involves a “vast and complex set of actions and measures”, with troops being prepared for “a range of defensive and offensive actions”.
Several variations of the plans have been drafted, and a final strategy will be chosen in “in such a way that the enemy cannot react,” she said.
Ukrainian forces are widely expected to mount a counteroffensive in the coming weeks or months in a bid to reclaim Russian-held territory.
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2h ago
10:37
Alleged leaker Jack Teixeira to remain in custody
The 21-year-old member of the US Air National Guard who is facing criminal charges for leaking top-secret military intelligence records online will remain in jail for now, according to court filings.
Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, was due to appear in a federal court in Boston on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether he would remain jailed pending trial after federal prosecutors in the case told US Magistrate Judge David Hennessy they intended to seek detention.
However, about two hours before the hearing, Teixeira’s team of public defenders filed a request asking the judge to delay the detention hearing for two weeks because they needed “more time to address the issues presented by the government’s request for detention.”
It remains to be seen whether Teixeira will opt to challenge the government’s detention request or not.
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2h ago
10:20
Ryanair promises to start flights back to Ukraine within two weeks of war ending
“We will be Ukraine’s biggest airline,” the budget airline’s boss, Michael O’Leary, has pledged at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway conference near Dublin.
He said he had hired around 60 Ukrainian pilots and around 80 cabin crew and his aim was to fly 30 routes from four Ukrainian airports back into the European Union within weeks of the conflict ending.
The airline would then plan to open up three or four large bases in the country within six to 12 months.
“We would be back in there hopefully within two weeks after someone tells us it’s safe to fly back into Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa.”
He added: “Kherson will be a lot longer because the airport has been destroyed.”
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3h ago
10:00
US has ‘sensitive technology’ at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant contains US-origin technology which Russia is being warned not to interfere with, according to a report.
CNN is reporting the warning came in a letter from the US energy department to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom last month.
Andrea Ferkile, the head of the department’s office of nonproliferation policy, told Rosatom’s director general that the plant “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States government”.
The nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine – the biggest in Europe – was captured by Russian troops in the early days of the war.
It has been repeatedly cut off from the power grid due to shelling and there are fears over the risk of a disastrous nuclear accident.
Moscow has rejected calls for a demilitarised zone around the site.
Rosatom manages the plant, though it is still physically operated by Ukrainian staff.
According to the letter seen by CNN, the US energy department warned Rosatom that it is “unlawful” for any Russian citizens or entities to handle the US technology.
It was not clear if Rosatom responded to the letter dated 17 March.
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3h ago
09:45
‘Everyone in UK needs to be aware of cyber threats posed by Russia’
The UK government is trying to persuade business to help defend against potential cyber attacks from Russia because it only controls three of 13 elements of critical infrastructure, says defence and security analyst Michael Clarke.
Discussing the intervention by Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden at the CyberUK conference in Belfast (see post at 1.22pm), Clarke told Sky News: “He is trying to bring in the whole of British society to awareness of the cyber threat because some cyber threats are towards the government but many of them are towards private industry – and we know there’s a lot of them out there.
“There’s a group which is designated APT 29, which is Advanced Persist Threat 29, and that spans several groups that look as if they are private but in fact they’re not, they’re controlled by Moscow and their job is to plant little cyber time bombs in critical infrastructure.
“In reality, critical national infrastructure covers 13 sectors and the government only controls two or three of them while all other areas are privately owned.”
It is for this reason that Mr Dowden is calling on business leaders to shore up their cyber defences.
Discussing the Russian spy ships roaming Nordic waters we mentioned earlier (see post at 8.48am), Clarke added: “Russian spy ships are everywhere, they pose as fishing vessels or survey ships but they’re not and you can normally tell by the radio antenna they have on their masts.
“They are looking for vulnerabilities in Western societies. So, if windfarms end up constituting a large portion of our resources, then they need to be protected.
“Similarly undersea cables, 97% of the internet is supplied by undersea cables and in 2017 our chief of the defence staff warned about the threat of Russian ships to these cables.”
Watch more from Clarke in the video below…
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3h ago
09:20
Alleged ex-Wagner Group members apparently confess to war crimes
Two former members of the Wagner Group have apparently confessed to killing children.
Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev told the exiled Russian human rights group Gulagu.net that they committed multiple atrocities.
In a video, while smoking a cigarette, Uldarov was seen saying: “With this hand I executed an order. I killed children. Understand. By order.
“We were given an order to sweep and kill everyone.
“She’s screaming, she’s a little child, you know, she’s five, maybe six. I took a kill shot.
“Do you understand? I was supposed to let no one out. No one.
“There was an order to kill everyone.”
Since the video emerged, the alleged commanders of the Wagner Group have claimed the men were blackmailed and paid by the human rights group to make the confession.
Assessing the apparent confession, defence and security analyst Michael Clarke said: “What they say seems plausible and accords with what we know happened in Soledar and Bakhmut, but it is more curious as to why they are saying it now.
“They haven’t been taken prisoner so they wouldn’t be saying it to please the Ukrainians. They’re not outside Russia, they’re inside Russia making apparent confessions of war crimes.
“What do they want? Are they trying to be celebrities in some way? That’s a strange thing to do? Have they been blackmailed by a human rights group? That’s very hard to imagine.”
Their apparent confession now effectively means they will be arrested if they ever leave Russia, he said: “If they were convicts working for Wagner they do have very powerful mitigation because if you are a convict working for Wagner and you disobey an order they shoot you.
“And that is powerful mitigation but it doesn’t erase the war crime.
“And that means on the basis of what they’ve said they will be indicted by the International Criminal Court, which means they would be arrested if they turned up in any one of 129 countries around the world anytime in the next 30 or 40 years.
“So now they can’t leave Russia.”
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4h ago
09:00
‘Patriots for patriots’: Ukraine takes delivery of air defence system
Ukraine’s defence minister has confirmed that Kyiv has taken delivery of Patriot air defence systems.
Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter: “Today, our beautiful Ukrainian sky becomes more secure because Patriot air defence systems have arrived in Ukraine.
“Our air defenders have mastered them as fast as they could and our partners have kept their word.”
He did not specify which partners he was referring to but his tweet offered thanks to Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius.
The tweet was accompanied by a picture of the missile defence systems credited to the German defence department.
The Patriot, which stands for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is a theatre-wide surface-to-air missile defence system built by American firm Raytheon Technologies.
It is considered one of the most advanced air defence systems in the world.
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4h ago
08:41
Putin critic has appeal against jail term rejected
A Moscow court has dismissed the appeal of a prominent Russian opposition against his eight and a half year prison sentence for criticising the invasion of Ukraine.
Ilya Yashin was convicted in December of spreading false information about the military, which was made a criminal offence after Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine last year.
The charges against him stemmed from a series of posts about Bucha, a town outside Kyiv where dead civilians were found in the streets and a mass grave after Russian troops withdrew.
During his trial last year, Mr Yashin argued that a livestreamed YouTube video in which he talked about Ukrainians being killed in Bucha cited official Russian sources along with Ukrainian statements to give his audience an objective view.
“I will not renounce the truth behind bars,” he said via video link at his hearing.
Mr Yashin was one of the few Kremlin critics to have stayed in Russia after the war began.
International human rights groups have denounced the sentence as a mockery of justice and called for Mr Yashin’s immediate release.
Before his sentencing, Mr Yashin addressed Mr Putin directly, urging him to “immediately stop this madness, recognise that the policy on Ukraine was wrong, pull back troops from its territory and switch to a diplomatic settlement of the conflict”.
Ilya Yashin in a glass cage before his verdict hearing in December
Ilya Yashin in a glass cage before his verdict hearing in December
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4h ago
08:22
Russian hackers trying to ‘disrupt or destroy’ UK infrastructure
Russian hackers are seeking to “disrupt or destroy” Britain’s critical infrastructure, the UK government has said.
The National Cyber Security Centre has issued an official threat notice to operators of electricity, water and other critical systems in the country, telling them to boost their defences.
“I don’t think we are yet doing enough to protect our infrastructure from the cyber threats emerging from Russia aligning groups,” the centre’s chief Linda Cameron has said.
Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden said the threat come from hackers sympathetic to Russia, though not necessarily directed by the Russian state.
Although the alleged hackers lack the capacity to do widespread damage to UK systems, he said, the threat is growing.
“Disclosing this threat is not something we do lightly,” Mr Dowden said, adding that it was necessary for “companies to understand the current risk they face, and take action to defend themselves and the country”.
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5h ago
08:03
‘Putin may not win the war on the battlefield – but is there another way he can do it’
Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Zaporizhzhia: Vladimir Putin’s war has been played out in recent months via bloody battles in these towns, but the frontline is not the only battleground the Russian president is fighting on.
Psychological and political warfare aimed at weakening the West’s resolve is Mr Putin’s other offensive, said a US veteran and terrorism researcher.
Writing for RAND, a non-profit research group, Brian Jenkins said the Russian leader’s nuclear posturing was a form of terrorism, aimed at instilling fear in Ukraine’s allies and distracting from Russia’s “military shortcomings”.
“It is intended to create alarm in the West that the war in Ukraine could escalate into a nuclear war disastrous for all. It gives humanitarian cover to those who argue that the war must be halted – if necessary, by abandoning Ukraine – to save the world,” he wrote.
Mr Putin’s threats remain in the “realm of propaganda”, said Jenkins, but this should not be dismissed: “He merely has to cause enough uncertainty to persuade them that they do not want to run the test to find out.”
“Nuclear saber rattling” has another goal, according to the researcher. The Russian premier is trying to convince his domestic audience of his claims Russia is facing an existential threat by leveraging the most serious of weapons.
He needs Russians to accept this narrative, in order for them to stomach a protracted war and economic sanctions, Jenkins argues.
“Putin and his media chorus tell the Russian people that they face not just NATO, but are threatened by satanic, drug-addicted, transgender Nazi paedophiles —a theme that may resonate with some far-right extremists in the West.”
“Will it work? We simply do not know,” he said, adding that while Russia’s youth may not be so easily distracted from Russia’s military failures, there is not a “vast seething underground of discontent” in the country.
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6h ago
06:52
Medvedev apparently threatens to send weapons to Pyongyang if South Korea arms Kyiv
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the security council of the Russian Federation, has threatened South Korea following the news that Seoul may change its stance on sending weapons to Ukraine.
The former president, and long-term ally of Vladimir Putin, wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “There are new ones willing to help our enemies.
“South Korean president Yun Sok-yeol said that, in principle, the state is ready to supply weapons to the Kyiv regime.
“Until recently, the South Koreans ardently assured that the possibility of supplying lethal weapons to Kyiv was completely ruled out.”
Apparently hinting Moscow could send weapons to North Korea in retaliation, he added: “I wonder what the inhabitants of this country will say when they see the latest designs of Russian weapons from their closest neighbours – our partners from the DPRK? What is called ‘Quid pro quo…'”
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6h ago
06:21
Does Putin have enough weapons to keep the war going?
Losses on the battlefield and sanctions have sent Moscow’s military into a state of decline; however, Vladimir Putin’s forces do still have enough firepower to keep the conflict going, according to a new independent analysis.
A report from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says almost 10,000 units of key Russian equipment such as tanks, trucks, artillery pieces and aerial drones have been lost.
But Russia can dip into Cold War-era stocks on the front lines to make up in numbers what it may have lost in advanced tech.
“The quality of the Russian military in terms of advanced equipment will likely decline, at least over the near term,” the CSIS report says.
“Moscow is estimated to have lost anywhere from 1,845 to 3,511 tanks one year into the war,” the CSIS report says.
The losses of its newer, upgraded T-72B3 main battle tank, first delivered in 2013, were noted as especially damaging.
Speaking at a briefing yesterday, Western officials said the Russians were “going backwards in terms of equipment,” highlighting that T-55 tanks, introduced in 1948, are now turning up on the battlefield.
However the report says that Russia still has numerical advantages over Ukraine in almost every respect, saying: “Russia’s military capabilities still greatly outnumber those of Ukraine on most indicators, including man, air, land, and naval power.”
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7h ago
05:53
Explainer: The Black Sea grain deal, what food is exported and which countries get the most?
Following on from the last post, we’ve taken a closer look at the grain export agreement…
Hailed as a landmark initiative, the deal allowed the safe export of grain to resume from Black Sea ports after they were blockaded by Vladimir Putin’s forces following its invasion of Ukraine.
The agreement was brokered by the UN and Turkey and signed at a ceremony in Istanbul on 22 July last year.
It has been renewed twice since then – once for 120 days in November, and again in March, though that time only for half the intended period.
Why was it needed?
The blockade by Russia’s Black Sea fleet after it invaded its neighbour cut off supplies to markets around the world and sent grain prices soaring.
Many people in the world’s poorest regions rely on shipments from the Black Sea for food, and it was feared the spiralling cost was fuelling a hunger crisis.
Though unblocking the sea export route helped to address the global food security crisis and lower grain prices, there are still hefty export backlogs.
What has been exported so far?
More than 27.7m tonnes of grain and other products have been shipped under the Black Sea grain deal.
Corn accounts for half the exports, followed by wheat.
Where do the exports go?
Ships have shifted huge volumes of grain exports from three key Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea – Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi – to world markets.
These are the top five destinations in terms of export volumes:
And this map indicates vessel movements from Ukraine to the rest of the world:
Pic: United Nations
Pic: United Nations
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7h ago
05:47
Ship inspections resume under UN Black Sea Grain initiative
Inspections of ships are resuming under a UN brokered agreement on the safe export of grain from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Ukrainian deputy PM Oleksandr Kubrakov said today.
He wrote on Facebook that “ship inspections are being resumed, despite the RF’s (Russian Federation’s) attempts to disrupt the agreement”.
The deadline for the extension of the initiative between Moscow and Kyiv is 18 May.
Earlier this week Ukraine warned that the initiative was in danger of being “shut down” after Russia blocked inspections of ships in Turkish waters.
Grain has become something of a thorny issue in the region.
With Ukraine unable to export large amounts of its stock via the Black Sea due to the war, it is staying in eastern Europe and forcing down prices.
This has caused countries in the area, including staunch allies of Kyiv such as Poland, to unilaterally ban imports of grain and other food products from Ukraine to protect their own farmers, as we reported on Monday.
However, Ukraine’s agriculture minister, Mykola Solsky, confirmed on Wednesday that the transit of Ukrainian grain and food products will resume through Poland after an agreement reached in talks with Warsaw.
