The US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions on four Ukrainian government officials for acting in the interest of Russian-directed influence activities.
The officials include four present and ex-government officials and have been found collecting critical data on Ukraine’s key network and infrastructure. This comes on the same day that the Department sanctioned a former Ukrainian official for helping Russian cyberspies.
Ukrainian government officials sanctioned – Moscow owned the Ukraine officials?
As per the US Department of Treasury statements, among the sanctioned individuals the two Ukrainian members of parliament and two ex-government officials were recruited and owned by Russia’s Federal Security Service in a mission to place its agents on key positions in the society to steal sensitive information, leverage Ukrainian situation and officials, report to Russia on time-sensitive intelligence.
Moscow is behind these acts and recruited such high profile and government officials to hand over Ukrainian officials and the government’s critical infrastructure with assistance from Moscow.
Key Ukrainian government official sanctioned
The individuals are Volodymr Oliynyk, a former Ukrainian government official who has worked as per instructions from the FSB for Kremlin-backed cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Oliynyk has been linked to Russia for a long time and is currently living in Moscow after leaving the Ukrainian border as a refuge.
Most of the cyberattacks happening in Ukraine are one way or the other linked to Moscow, including the massive power outage that happened in Ukraine recently. It is said that Russia has had its hands on Ukraine and its critical infrastructure for several years now, as Moscow is orchestrating multiple cyber-espionage campaigns against the Ukrainian Energy Sector.
Also, US, Europe and other nations including the UN are concerned about Russian invasion over Ukrainian soil as Russian troops are lined up near the Ukraine border in thousands. However, Vladimir Putin claims innocent about that thought and Moscow doesn’t intend anything so on Ukraine.
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