Maryland Grand Jury Charges GRU Members, Civilian in Ukraine Hack
Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
On Sept. 5, a Maryland grand jury unsealed a superseding indictment against five members of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) and one previously charged Russian civilian for conspiring to hack the Ukrainian government and its allies in the U.S. and Europe.
The indictment alleges that:
Defendants Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Yuriy Denisov, Dmitriy Goloshubov, and Nikolay Korchagin were GRU officers and members of Unit 29155 who knowingly conspired with Amin Stigal, a Russian citizen and civilian, and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury…to gain unauthorized access (to “hack”) into computers associated with the Ukrainian Government and entities associated with the governments of countries that provided support to the Ukrainian Government in resisting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The defendants are charged with distributing “a cyberweapon designed to completely destroy the target computer and related data” to Ukrainian government agencies in advance of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The indictment also accuses the defendants of probing computer systems in “at least 26 NATO countries”—as well as government sites in the United States—in search of vulnerabilities.
Read the indictment here or below:
