Cyber specialists from Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the digital infrastructure of Russian energy giants Gazprom and Gazpromneft, a source from within the agency confirmed to Kyiv Post.

The attack targeted online services used by these companies to support the operations of the Russian armed forces.

Head of Ukraine's Military Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov attends the "Ukraine Year 2024" forum in Kyiv on February 25, 2024. Enigmatic and unflappable, spy chief Kyrylo Budanov has built up a legendary reputation in Ukraine with a series of daring operations against Russia. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)

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Since Tuesday, customers of both Gazprom and the Gazpromneft subsidiary have been unable to access their personal accounts, use online services, pay for fuel with fuel cards, or manage bonuses.

Gazprom has acknowledged the disruption, referring to it as a “technical glitch” but has not provided a timeline for restoring services.

A source within HUR told Kyiv Post that the cyberattack was dedicated to the legacy of Ukraine’s Heroes of the Battle of Kruty, who resisted Russian forces in 1918.

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“Today’s problems for Russian drivers are a tribute to our brothers from 1918, the Heroes of Kruty, who stood against Muravyov’s criminal Russian gangs. Today, we continue the work of Kyiv’s defenders, both on the front lines and in cyberspace,” the source said.

In the summer of 2024, the HUR hackers launched a large-scale cyberattack on the Russian financial sector which disrupted the operations of many Russian banks as well as Russian government online resources for more than a week.

A similar HUR cyberattack on Jan. 4 affected Russia’s RegionTransService which supports Russian railway freight operations.

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The cyberattack was said to have destroyed company servers disabled the majority of linked workstations and wiped all back up files – according to an RBC Ukraine source 78 servers and 211 workstations were affected.

A HUR source said the date for the attack had been chosen in celebration of the birthday of the head of HUR, Kyrylo Budanov.

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