As Russia invaded Ukraine, much was made of Ukraine’s volunteer “hacktivist” army, but an analysis of cyberattacks against Russia suggests they achieved little more than minor digital graffiti
Technology 1 September 2025
By Chris Stokel-Walker
The role of the digital battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine war is unclear
Shutterstock/ViennaVectors
Ukraine’s highly touted “hacktivist” army abandoned cyber offensives against Russia just weeks after the war began, and ultimately achieved very little, a new analysis has revealed.
Anh Vu at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues analysed the number of cyberattacks launched against Russian and Ukrainian targets in the first six months of 2022 to examine the evolution of the cyberwar between the two nations.
The researchers used global databases tracking the number of websites defaced by hackers …
