< p>Five Russian military intelligence officers and one civilian, Amin Stigall, are wanted by the FBI for their alleged involvement in criminal cyber activities in favor of Russia. This is clear from a post by the Bureau on Facebook.
Their actions are fixed between December 2020 and August 2024 - i.e. most of the incriminated acts are from before Russia's attack on Ukraine, which began in February 2022. A reward of 10 million dollars was also announced.
All GRU officers are part of the infamous squad 29,155, which investigative journalists implicated in the Novichok poisoning attempts of Emilian Gebrev and Sergei Skripal. That squad 29115 operates to destabilize countries in Europe has been suspected for at least 10 years, but the evidence is scattered.
The FBI is looking for Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Yuri Denisov, Dmitry Goloshubov, Nikolai Korchagin and civilian Amin Stigal.
Civilian Stigall is alleged to have conspired on behalf of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation (GRU)
According to the findings of American investigators, GRU unit officers Colonel Yuri Denisov (unit commander) and lieutenants Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Dmitry Goloshubov and Nikolai Korchagin in January 2022 and later hacked and infected many government computers and systems with Ukraine's critical infrastructure for the WhisperGate virus.
The WhisperGate virus looked like ransomware, but in reality it was designed to destroy the content of the servers of government agencies, as well as financial institutions, healthcare institutions, emergency services and educational institutions.
The purpose of these attacks, according to the Americans, is to wreak havoc in Ukraine before a full-scale Russian invasion and to undermine Ukrainians' faith in the viability of their country.
According to the indictment, in addition to Ukraine, the Russians tried to attack the systems of the United States and 25 other NATO countries that helped Ukraine with this virus.
On Wednesday, the United States accused the management of Russian state media concern RT, including its director Margarita Simonyan, as well as hackers linked to the FSB, of new attempts to influence the outcome of the US presidential election through disinformation
Back in 2018, British special services accused the GRU of carrying out attacks in the UK and abroad against political institutions, financial systems, transport networks and the media
A report by the US National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) also implicated the GRU in trying to interfere in the election that brought Donald Trump to power. According to the NCSC, the GRU is associated with a number of hacker groups: Fancy Bear; Sofacy; Pawnstorm; Sednit; CyberCaliphate; Cyber Berkut; Voodoo bear; BlackEnergy Actors; Strontium; Tsar Team and Sandworm.
Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand have also accused the GRU of running a worldwide campaign of "malicious" cyber attacks.