Ukraine

OPINION -- The US is taking a more active role in the ongoing cyber war between Russia and Ukraine on the side of the Kiev government. On May 14, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the award of a four-year, $38 million contract to provide cyber security for critical ...

  Bottom Line Up Front Senior U.S. officials have inexplicably parroted statements echoing the Kremlin’s talking points that Russia was a victim of a Ukrainian smear campaign. In a display of remarkably careless operations security, American government officials regularly communicated on unsecured lines in heavily-monitored counter-intelligence environments with little concern ...

As the impeachment investigation continues, The Cipher Brief spoke with former CIA Director and retired Four-Star General David Petraeus about why Ukraine is such an important strategic partner for the U.S. The Cipher Brief:  You and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst called in recent months for U.S. support ...

OPINION -- Could there be a Hugh Scott in 2019? I refer to Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, in office from 1958 to 1976, who came to mind because as a young Pennsylvanian during the Watergate crisis, he left an impression on me. An old-fashioned centrist Republican, Scott was one ...

OPINION -- Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson deserves praise along with the Whistleblower for pushing within the law to get President Trump’s highly protected phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before the Congress and the public. Atkinson’s two week “preliminary review” helped build credibility for the Whistleblower’s August ...

The U.S. Navy sailed the USS McCampbell close to contested waters in the Sea of Japan on Wednesday, according to CNN.   A U.S. Pacific Fleet Spokesperson, told the television network that Moscow lays claim to areas that ‘far exceed’ the 12 miles outside their internationally-guaranteed coastline, saying “The USS McCampbell ...

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko says he is ready for four-country talks with Russia over the crisis in the Black Sea.  Poroshenko declared martial law last month after Russian ships seized Ukrainian vessels and took Ukrainian sailors into custody, claiming they had illegally entered Russian waters.  The United Nations held an ...

President Petro Poroshenko now says that Ukraine is ready to consider talks with Russia.  The Ukrainian leader told French broadcaster, France 24, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed to talks involving the four countries that make up the ‘Normandy Four’: Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. This, after President Donald ...

The U.S. is calling for more rigorous enforcement of sanctions against Russia after Russian ships fired on and seized three Ukrainian boats on Sunday, claiming the ships had ‘illegally’ entered its waters.  Russia has been using Ukraine as a provocation point for some time, so will the tougher enforcement of ...

  Bottom Line Up Front After months of increasing restrictions, Russia recently blockaded the Sea of Azov at the Kerch Strait, denying Ukrainian ships the ability to enter. Russia fired upon and seized two Ukrainian gunboats and a tugboat as they attempted to sail from Odessa to Mariupol, with an ...

  Bottom Line Up Front The armed conflict in Ukraine has received scant attention in the Western media lately, however, tensions have recently increased between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. is bolstering Ukraine’s armed forces with new technology and joint training exercises, actions interpreted by Russia as provocations. Russia ...

Russia. We hear and read about it every day in the mainstream media, but the news seems almost exclusively focused on the various investigations of Russian meddling and the politics surrounding them. Russian meddling, to be sure, merits this coverage since the cyberattacks and spread of polarizing disinformation represented a ...

Moscow may increasingly look toward private military companies (PMCs), known in Russia as Chastnye Voennie Companiy (ChVK), to exert plausibly deniable and economically and politically sustainable military influence abroad, according to experts speaking to The Cipher Brief. Unlike relying on proxies such as ragtag local militias or organized criminal groups ...

Concealment, imitation and disinformation - tactics known as maskirovka – were part of a Soviet doctrine used by their military and intelligence services – namely the KGB and GRU. The principal military purpose of maskirovka is to mislead an enemy regarding the disposition, composition and intentions of its forces. Under ...

As the dust settles on last Tuesday’s NotPetya malware outbreak, it is increasingly evident that this was not a ransomware, money-making attack at all; rather it was a targeted, destructive cyberattack against Ukraine. It utilized deception in which it was designed to look like ransomware but wasn’t. It targeted obscure ...

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first meeting later this week comes against the backdrop of a cyberattack thought to be linked to Russia that largely wreaked havoc in Ukraine. This latest cyberattack, which spread globally, offers yet another potent example of the way the Kremlin has treated ...

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dropped in to briefly meet President Donald Trump on Tuesday, a low-key visit that comes weeks before the U.S. leader’s expected sit-down with Russian President Vladimir Putin and as fighting flares in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian armed forces. Experts told The Cipher Brief ...

If you missed our previous dispatch, I am attending the annual RSA Conference in San Francisco, a global event where private and public sectors come together to hash out the most pressing concerns in cybersecurity today. Prior discussions hit on technical approaches to privacy, the role of government in laying ...

President Donald Trump has never shown much interest in foreign policy issues.  The few consistent themes he has supported are to defeat ISIS, restructure trade deals, and radically improve relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  While it is easy to understand the interest in destroying ISIS, and his thoughts on trade ...

In July, Rob Dannenberg, the former head of security at Goldman Sachs and a 24-year veteran of the CIA, discussed Russia’s cyber strategy of information warfare and the role of proxies in undermining attribution efforts, consequentially stemming victims' political will to respond to provocations. Moving from the disruptive attack on ...

When it comes to cybersecurity preparations for the 2016 election, it is now officially too late. The success, perceived and actual, of the election on Tuesday will depend on the efforts officials have made thus far, the willingness of adversaries to interfere, and vulnerabilities that make those threats real. A ...

Ukraine and Georgia have made clear their desires to become full members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in order to ensure their security. But it is precisely this aim that guarantees their insecurity. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made his red line very clear to both Ukraine and ...

In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, six years after the NATO summit in Bucharest – where members signaled that Ukraine and Georgia should be made NATO allies in the future – and immediately following then Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, stemming from public upheaval over Yanukovych’s refusal to sign an ...

In the week since Nadiya Savchenko returned to Ukraine after her release from a Russian prison, the military pilot has shaken up her country’s political landscape. Savchenko’s controversial jailing made her a national icon for Ukraine, and she came back to a hero’s welcome — as well as to a ...

It’s not back to business as usual, but NATO and Russian ambassadors did meet in Brussels on Wednesday for the first time in two years. A halting of all practical cooperation between the two sides was imposed by NATO after Russia’s support for an armed insurgency in eastern Ukraine and ...

Following the Euromaidan revolution, Ukraine is engaged in a two-pronged fight that integrates domestic and foreign components. The first battle is Russia’s desire to dismember Ukraine, halt its European integration, and return it to the Russkii Mir (Russian World) sphere of influence. The second battle is to begin to effectively ...

Russia, seemingly at will, ramps up the pressure in Ukraine. And it looks as if another uptick is underway. So far, the West has yet to show it has the resolve to end the Russian aggression. At the annual Munich Security Conference in Germany this weekend, international monitors indicated there ...

Closely supported by Russian air power and artillery, Syrian army attacks against rebel forces near Aleppo, Syria coincide with a significant intensification of fighting in eastern Ukraine, with the largest number of daily attacks by the Russian-separatist forces since August 2015. There have been heavy attacks all across the front ...

The Russian government is considered to be one of the most advanced cyber actors globally, with highly sophisticated cyber capabilities on par with the other major cyber powers. Open source information about Russian cyber programs and funding is scarce, but an ultimate goal of the government is to gain information ...