Russia Expert: Moscow Cyberattacks Loom in ‘Later Stages’ of Ukraine War

The lack of “any visible cyber activity” from Moscow is one of many “surprises about the campaign that Russia is waging against Ukraine,” Keir Giles, Chatham House senior consulting fellow-Russian and Eurasian affairs, said Friday on a Conference Board podcast. “There are a lot of areas of Russian capability that were expected to be deployed against Ukraine that somehow haven’t materialized.” The impact of major Russian cyber operations against Ukraine would be “huge,” and many experts are speculating “that is actually why Russia is being restrained and is holding off from mounting the campaigns that were expected,” said Giles. “If Russia conducts cyberattacks against Ukraine only, it may be very hard for them to contain the effects to Ukraine only.” Giles worries that in the “later stages of Russia’s war on the West” there will materialize cyberattacks from Moscow that “are far less restrained,” he said. “If and when Russia does move on from Ukraine, and it comes away from Ukraine thinking that at least it had met some of its objectives, then the next stage of the attack on the West will almost certainly include those cyberattacks that are far less discriminating.” If Russia succeeds in removing access to the internet “in large sectors of large countries,” the economic impact obviously will be significant, said Giles. “Everybody that is data-dependent or that manages civilian telecommunications infrastructure needs to be prepared,” he said.