RU President Vladimir recently offered to end the war in Ukraine if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO membership ambitions and concede the four provinces of its territory that are claimed and occupied by Russian troops. The democratically elected Ukraine government swiftly rejected these terms. However, the Russian offer suggests that they do not see a near-term military victory in the disputed territory, which could be the motive behind the evolution of its cyberwar tactics in the overall military conflict.[1]
Russian cyber units have started to focus on targets tied to Ukrainian military objectives, trying to hack devices used by Ukrainian soldiers and getting access to command-and-control systems. This new approach to cyber operations marks a shift from attacking more strategic civilian targets like telecommunications and energy infrastructure.
It does look like Russia has altered its approach to exploiting targets that could provide more direct battlefield advantages and support its ground forces. These new priorities in the conflict may indicate that Russia considers its cyber weapons to be a more effective alternative to conventional weapons.
While Russia has deployed a sustained campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure since the outset of the conflict in 2022, it has achieved no conclusive strategic advantage. Two years later, Russia has recalculated how it uses its cyber weapons and sophisticated hacking capabilities to achieve the type of asymmetric advantage that its very high level of capability can deliver. Although there is no sign that Russia has abandoned its cyber efforts against critical infrastructure, it looks like cyber-attacks against such targets are difficult to carry out and do achieve the anticipated results.
If Russia’s tactical shift has a measurable impact, it will guide other militaries in integrating their own cyber capabilities. Their true power may prove to be not a 'first strike' weapon but a 'force multiplier' on the battlefield, a complement that reinforces conventional military operations.
The extent to which this new effort is successful remains to be seen. However, Russia has not achieved what it wants concerning conducting cyber-attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructures.
Damage and disruption have been caused, but little else has been done to get Ukraine to submit. This evolution plays to those areas in which cyber operations have been most effective, stealing data, compromising devices, and surveilling targets in advance of conventional attacks.
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[1] https://www.cybersecurityintelligence.com/blog/russian-cyberwar-methods-are-evolving-7819.html
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