The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against six Russian intelligence officers in connection with some of the world’s most damaging cyberattacks, including disruption of Ukraine’s power grid and the release of a mock ransomware virus that infected computers globally and caused billions of dollars in damage.
That group, authorities alleged, also hacked computers supporting the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, hacked and leaked emails of individuals involved in Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 campaign for president of France, and targeted the organizations investigating the poisoning of former Russian operative Sergei Skripal two years ago in Britain.
The alleged hackers are members of the same military intelligence agency — the GRU — previously charged in connection with efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. And one of those charged Monday, 29-year-old Anatoliy Kovalev, was also indicted as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of the alleged conspiracy to hack American election systems that year.
But the new indictment does not charge any Russians with attempting to interfere in this year’s contest, and officials said the announcement was not timed to the current political schedule.
Rather, the six Russians stand accused of what Justice Department officials say is the single most disruptive and destructive series of cyberattacks ever attributed to one group. The indictment, like others before it, is an effort, officials say, to pull the veil back on how Moscow has sought to punish or retaliate against detractors of the Russian Federation — whether they are former Soviet states, European nations or the United States.