A collection of hackers and technology experts has gathered in an attempt to combat Russia and President Vladimir Putin remotely.
A group of 300,000 people known as the “IT Army of Ukraine” has gathered on the chat app Telegram, where members are working together to disrupt Russia’s internet in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The crowdsourced attacks have been successful in disrupting Russian government and state-backed media websites,” Alp Toker, the director of the technology watchdog NetBlocks, told the Guardian.
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This group of tech-savvy supporters of Ukraine started out when Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov posted a link to a Telegram channel on Feb. 26 requesting help. “We are creating an IT army,” Fedorov said. “We need digital talents. All operational tasks will be given here.”
That opportunity attracted the attention of several people who were unable to fight in Ukraine but could provide assistance in other ways. One member of this group, known as “Kali,” is a teenager who just wanted to help. “I’m from Switzerland, but I’m a strong hacker, and I’m so sorry for every Ukrainian,” Kali told the Guardian. “I do it because I stand with Ukraine, and I want to help somehow. I think if we hack Russia’s infrastructure, they will stop, maybe, because nothing will work anymore.”
The group has organized various technological assaults on Russia, including distributed denial of service attacks on Russian state websites. Several Russian websites reported outages in the early days of the war. Others are doing what they can to translate the chat and the focus into other languages, including an English hub.
The group has also attempted to broadcast “counter-propaganda” to Russians online in an attempt to break through Russian state media’s censorship and inform the country about what is actually going on in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s IT Army is not the only one attempting to target Russia through its technology. The hacking collective Anonymous interrupted Russian state television on March 6, broadcasting footage of the Ukrainian invasion and an anti-war message to viewers. The collective also sent 7 million texts to Russians and hacked 400 security cameras.
A group of Polish programmers is also making its own effort to push back on Russian propaganda. The programmers acquired millions of Russian contacts and have created a website that allows anyone to send pre-drafted messages in Russian calling on citizens to bypass state censorship of the media.
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Russia has grown internally focused recently as tech companies have adopted a more scrupulous approach to Russian propaganda. Russia banned Instagram on Monday and declared its parent company, Meta, an “extremist organization” on Friday over its decision to allow Ukrainians to post content supporting violence against Russian troops. It has also restricted several social media platforms, including Facebook and Youtube.
This has also allowed Russia to accelerate its own internal propaganda, including implementing a new nationalist symbol.
