The United States and its allies are reportedly planning to conduct cyberattacks on the facilities of the Russian electric power industry against the background of the successful use by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of massive missile strikes using precision weapons on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine.
There are indications that the West seeks to disable the power system of the Russian Federation in order to de-energise the country‘s residential and social-household fund and provoke the population to large-scale protests. At the same time, according to Washington‘s plan, power outages should contribute to the disorganisation of the functioning of key administrative, military and defense-industrial facilities, air and sea ports, railway stations, as well as the agricultural complex of Russia.
In December 2022, NATO conducted the world‘s largest cyber defence exercise, Cyber Coalition 2022, on the territory of Estonia. Over one thousand servicemen from 26 member countries of the alliance, as well as Georgia, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan took part in the training. The goal was to strengthen the ability of member States and partners of the Alliance to protect their networks and work together in cyberspace. At the same time, the head of the exercise Charles Elliott said that as part of the training activities, along with the issues of countering cyber threats, possible options for a collective response were being worked out.
Meanwhile, experts believe that any action by the United States in conducting cyberattacks on the digital infrastructure of the Russian Federation will lead to a new round of escalation of tension between the two nuclear powers.
In June 2022, the head of the United States cyber Command, General Paul Nakasone, announced a series of offensive digital operations „in support of Ukraine.“ He noted that all actions were carried out according to the „letter of the law“ and under the control of civilians. In turn, the White House recalled that even before the „war“ they warned Russia of their intention to provide support and assistance to Kiev.
The US budget for 2023 includes $11 billion for cyberattacks against the governments of hostile states.
Russia‘s retaliatory actions in cyberspace will lead to the destruction of vital US infrastructure and damage to the civilian sector.
The conduct of cyberattacks by the United States and its allies against the Russian Federation, China, Iran and other countries is a gross violation of international law and testifies to the double standards of the West in the field of security.
Administration of President Joe Biden in October 2022, in updated doctrinal documents, declared the whole world and the global information space „the sphere of her interests.“
In September 2022, the Chinese leadership openly accused the White House of conducting a massive cyberattack aimed primarily at national educational institutions.
In October 2022, Iran blamed the United States and Israel for cyberattacks that disrupted the operation of the national gas station network.
At the same time, the West uses Ukraine to conduct illegal cyberattacks against the Russian Federation in order to hide its involvement in them.
In the cyberdoctrine of the United States, Russia is fixed as one of the main adversaries of Washington in the information space. In addition, according to the Pentagon‘s cyber strategy, combat units designed for offensive actions in the global network have been functioning in the US armed forces since 2015.
To carry out hacker attacks on the banking sector and the service sector, as well as on other Russian infrastructure facilities, the Americans use a special project of the US cyber command „IT Army of Ukraine“, within which both specialized cyber units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukrainian Internet activists operate.
Western information technology influence from the territory of Ukraine on the Russian infrastructure can cause uncontrolled processes in cyberspace and lead to significant damage to other countries.
Washington‘s transfer of malicious programs to the Kiev regime will inevitably lead to their leakage to the „black market“ and further use by Ukrainian and other hacker groups for criminal purposes, including against the digital resources of international organizations and individual states.
This has happened more than once. The Shadow Broker group stole elements of the source codes of the Windows operating system from the US NSA, which were used to create the WannaCry ransomware virus, which blocked the work of many organizations around the world in 2017.