Russian special services are conducting information campaigns against Ukraine. Separate units are working exclusively to destabilize the situation in our country.

This was announced at the All-Ukrainian Forum "Ukraine 30" by the Chief of the SBU Cybersecurity Directorate Illia Vitiuk.

"In the context of hybrid war, the scale of Russian information aggression, which is organized and coordinated by these units, is growing significantly. They are focused on conducting special information operations and campaigns, including subversive ones. Thus, there are financed separate divisions focusing exclusively in Ukraine," Illia Vitiuk stressed.

According to the Chief, hybrid war includes such tools: TV channels, information portals, web resources, communities on social networks, e-mail services, telegram channels, so-called troll factories and individual bloggers.

They are used for anti-Ukrainian propaganda and destabilization of the situation in our country.

The SBU cyber specialists systematically provide comprehensive protection of the national information space from encroachments of foreign special services.

During 2020, the Service:

• blocked over 2,500 communities on social networks with one million followers, more than 20 botnets with 60,000 accounts;
• neutralized over 600 cyber incidents and cyber-attacks against information resources of public authorities;
• stopped the activity of 20 hacker groups involved in such attacks.

"Special services collect intelligence and personal data of Ukrainian citizens via such networks, and then attack governmental information recourses and critical infrastructure," Illia Vitiuk pointed out.

Much of such botnets and cyber-attacks are coordinated by Russia.

The situation is similar with pro-Russian propaganda, which is being worked on by professional propagandists at the request of enemy’s special services.

The SBU then served suspicion notices of high treason and incitement to national hatred to certain bloggers and telegram channel administrators.