The international delegation, headed by Ana Lucía Bueno, ICRC Public Health Coordinator, and Sujit Panda, Head of the Physical Rehabilitation…
The large-scale attack of the Russian Federation on Ukraine began earlier than 24 February 2022 — with hacker operations in cyberspace.
Two weeks before the open armed aggression, Russia massively attacked Ukrainian government structures on the Internet.
Russian cyberattacks pushed Ukrainian activists to create structures capable of countering the aggressor in cyberspace.
Their activity was successful but now urgently requires state attention, legislative formalization, and structuring.
This was emphasized in an exclusive commentary to ArmyInform by Roman Burko, founder and head of the international intelligence community InformNapalm.
“This is already the twelfth year of the war, which began with the invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the occupation of Crimea and parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Back then, the international community demonstrated weakness and unpreparedness to defend international law. The rhetoric of ‘deep concern’ replaced real decisions. The Kremlin drew a clear conclusion: escalation is possible”, — he said.
The new wave of armed aggression began on 24 February 2022, but two weeks before that, Russia launched massive cyberattacks against Ukraine.
“On 24 February 2022, the war entered a phase of full-scale invasion — far more bloody and explicitly aimed at destroying Ukrainian statehood. But the escalation began earlier. About two weeks before the large-scale assault, Russia launched massive cyberattacks against Ukrainian state structures and private users. Accounts of Ukrainian opinion leaders, military personnel, analysts, and volunteers documenting Russian aggression were systematically blocked. InformNapalm volunteers and our official website also came under attack. Cyberspace became the first line of the new wave of war”, — Burko said.
Thus cyberspace became the first domain and frontline of resistance to Russian aggression.
“As a volunteer community that began operating actively in Crimea in March 2014, we understood well: the information and cyber domain is an integral part of modern warfare. It is a full-fledged theater of war and at the same time an effective tool of asymmetric response.
We systematically documented evidence of Russian aggression, translated materials into dozens of languages, conducted intelligence operations to identify enemy units, equipment, facilities, and hidden connections. We began mainly with OSINT, and within two years IT specialists formed the first known hacktivist groups acting against Russia in cyberspace”, — Burko said.
This activity began during the period of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine, when the Russian Federation concealed and denied its involvement in the so-called “Ukrainian conflict”.
“In 2016, we proposed uniting these groups into the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance. In fact, these became Ukraine’s volunteer cyber forces, which took on the task of conducting active operations in cyberspace. The Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, together with InformNapalm, carried out dozens of high-level operations documented on our website and in open sources. At the same time, hacktivists long remained in a ‘gray zone’, without clear legal status or systemic state support. The state generally did not obstruct but also did not create mechanisms of integration and centralized coordination. Special services likely tried at times to involve certain specialists, but no unified decision-making vertical existed.
Different groups acted simultaneously, sometimes unaware of each other. There were cases when several teams worked on the same target, creating risks of operation failure or premature exposure”, — the expert noted.
Thus, even then, the need arose to create Cyber Forces within Ukraine’s Defense Forces to protect the country in cyberspace.
With the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, this need became especially urgent.
“That is why we publicly raised the issue of establishing unified Cyber Forces of Ukraine — capable of coordinating efforts, uniting state and civilian sectors, and creating real synergy. The full-scale invasion gave a powerful impetus to the development of military technologies. The state quickly realized that survival required adaptation to the new reality, though the process was uneven. For example, the Drone Systems Forces were created relatively quickly. Meanwhile, forming full-fledged Cyber Forces has stalled for years. Only in October 2025 did the Verkhovna Rada pass the draft law on creating Cyber Forces in the first reading. After that, the process again stopped and still awaits completion.
Despite legislative delays, cooperation between IT volunteers, the military, and state structures is developing horizontally. Coordination emerges out of necessity. The enemy does not wait for formal decisions, so neither can we”, — emphasized Roman Burko.
