SBU verifies authenticity of most leaked documents

Documents from a hacked email account reportedly belonging to Vladislav Surkov, an aide of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, are similar to instructions seized by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) agents from organizers of a separatist movement in Zakarpattya, head of the SBU’s personnel department Oleksandr Tkachuk said.

“I say officially that the majority of the documents are confirmed factually, their authenticity … They are the same as instructions taken from individuals working for Russian special forces,” Tkachuk told 112.ua TV channel on Oct. 25.

Tkachuk said the contents of several files leaked on the site of an Internet hacker group correspond with documented materials, which were seized during searches involving a criminal investigation into separatist movements in Zakarpattya region. He cited the plan for giving federal status to Zakarpattya region and a number of other documents, saying that they corresponded word-for-word with materials taken from Citizen G, the head of a radical Rusyn independence movement, who is currently in Russia.

“We have turned the documents over for expert study. We only have access to the files released to the public and do not have contacts with the hacker group that released them. So, we don’t have the ability to determine whether the documents were changed after they were received by electronic mail,” Tkachuk said.

The SBU official called on the group of hackers claiming responsibility for breaking into Surkov’s email account to help with the investigation.

SBU advisor Yuriy Tandit was alsked by SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak to raise the issue at an early meeting on October 25.

On October 24 Verkhovna Rada member and Interior Ministry advisor Anton Gerashchenko confirmed that a group named Cyberhunta had hacked into Surkov’s email account.

Earlier on October 24 Cyberhunta said on its website that Ukrainian hackers had received access to the email account of Surkov and correspondence about ways to force early presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

Cyberhunta’s website posted purported correspondence on the “destabilization of the social and political situation in Ukraine, information discrediting Poroshenko and his inner circle and plans to give Zakarpattya special federal status, as well as using Hungary and Romania to help achieve these ends”.