Moscow’s Defense-Industrial Despair -Hybrid Aggression against Ukraine and the West

Islamabad: Monitoring Desk – Ukrainian officials believe that for more than eight months of the war, the Russian army is degrading more and more, both morally and materially. Russia has significantly depleted its stocks of ammunition for air, missile and artillery strikes. The Russian authorities are facing more and more problems with the supply of weapons.

They are trying to replenish the “reserves” both with their own capabilities and at the expense of Russia’s partner countries, however, everything is not so simple here either.

Among the potential partners are only countries that are isolated and under severe sanctions, in particular, such as Belarus, Iran and North Korea, where they believe that by helping Moscow, they are counteracting the United States.

The creation of a competitive military industry in Russia itself does not meet its real needs. Such initiatives by the Russian leadership do not solve the existing problems of the military-industrial base and the broken supply chain. The authorities are unable to mobilize the Russian economy for war, even at the most basic level. The aggressor state does not have enough microelectronics, which is critical for creating new weapons and repairing equipment damaged in battles.

Russia’s growing dependence on arms supplies from states that have been under heavy sanctions for years gives a real assessment of both the effectiveness of export controls and sanctions against the military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation, and the inability to produce enough even the simplest weapons for war against Ukraine.

Russian Cyber Attacks as an Element of Hybrid Aggression against Ukraine and the West

Russian military aggression in Ukraine is accompanied by a large number of intense cyber attacks. They are part of the so-called hybrid aggression against Ukraine and the West: Russia attracts the most qualified IT specialists to carry out cyber attacks against Ukrainian digital infrastructure, their number increased significantly in the second half of 2021 and reached its peak in January-February 2022.

More than 30 state and military structures of Ukraine were target of the most powerful hacker attacks. While Russia has always denied the facts of such attacks, they are one of the key elements of its hybrid aggression. Hacker attacks against Ukraine are a component of a multi-level hybrid war, which involves not only Russia, but also its satellites and allies — Belarus and Iran.

Cybernetic and information attacks are one of the most destructive components of such aggression. In fact, in Ukraine, Russia is testing what it plans to use later on against the West. The Kremlin is trying to improve all of its hacking tools in Ukraine.

Western countries, such as the UK, have always helped Ukraine in the context of countering Russian cyber attacks. In particular, a group of British IT specialists began to strengthen the protection of Ukrainian government websites within 35 minutes after the invasion of Russian troops on February 24, because a full-scale invasion was accompanied by unprecedented hacker attacks.

Since then, in cooperation with British partners, Ukraine has managed to neutralize dozens of Russian cyber strikes. The concrete assistance of the British side consisted, in particular, in providing Ukrainian IT specialists with intelligence data that helped to figure out where the threat comes from, what it consists of and what targets on the territory of Ukraine it is directed against.

Since October, Russia has stepped up missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. In parallel, cyber attacks are being carried out on the relevant ministries and departments — state institutions responsible for critical processes. We are talking about the so-called industrial hacking: Russia wants to provoke an artificial crisis: energy, food, management. Russia does not separate the military and cyber components of external aggression: they are united and will remain so in the future.