The cyberwar in Ukraine is as crucial as the battle in the trenches

There is nothingIT to identify who is inside the office building in Kyiv, but the Russians do not need a nameplate to tell them. Windows on its higher floors are still smashed from a drone attack last summer on the nerve centre of Ukraine’s cyber-defence operations. Both sides are locked in combat to steal intelligence and sow panic by attacking telecommunications, critical infrastructure, military computers and whatever else they can hack into. This war is being fought in the shadows, says a Ukrainian intelligence official. Last June, he says, “big strikes” shut down petrol stations and internet providers in Russia’s Belgorod and Rostov regions; but few outsiders noticed and the Russian authorities said nothing about it. Tim Karpinsky, head of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, a “hacktivist community”, says that many Ukrainians and Russians, including vast criminal networks, once worked together in and cyber. When the two countries went to war, this meant the Ukrainians had “the skills, tools, knowledge and abilities to fight back effectively”. The cyber warriors see themselves battling on a new front line that is as crucial as the war in the trenches.