The US charged five Russian intelligence officials and a Russian civilian with conspiring to launch cyberattacks against Ukraine and its allies in a bid to hobble Kyiv, Report informs via Reuters.
In a revised indictment unsealed on Thursday, the Justice Department said a cyber unit of Russia's military intelligence agency conducted "large-scale cyber operations" starting as far back as 2020, before Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In addition to targeting Ukraine, they allegedly targeted the systems of at least 26 NATO countries by scanning them for vulnerabilities, according to the indictment.
Russia's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment by email.
The original indictment, filed in June in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, only named a single defendant: Amin Stigal.
It accused him of conspiring with Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, or GRU, to launch cyber attacks against computer systems in Ukraine and other countries, including a computer network maintained by an unnamed US agency in Maryland.
The GRU officers and members of the Unit 29155 who were named in the indictment are Yuriy Denisov, Vladislav Borovkov, Denis Denisenko, Dmitry Goloshubov, and Nikolay Korchagin.