Saturday, February 26, 2022

 Anonymous leaks database of the Russian Ministry of Defence

by Jurgita Lapienytė
25 February 2022


Thursday evening, the Anonymous collective declared a cyberwar against Russia as Putin's forces closed in on the Ukrainian capital. And it looks like they were serious.

On Friday evening, Anonymous claimed they managed to breach the database belonging to the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Anonymous posted the database online and made it accessible to anyone. "Hackers all around the world: target Russia in the name of #Anonymous let them know we do not forgive, we do not forget. Anonymous owns fascists, always," the group tweeted.

It seems that the database contains officials' phone numbers, emails, and passwords. Twitter users seem excited about the news and continue discussing how they could use them to harm Putin's regime.

"Sign them up for GOP and Trump fundraising emails. That will be enough to drive them all crazy," one user suggested.

Many encouraged each other to send spam and malware to Russians. The original tweet announcing the leak and containing the link to the database was taken down because it "violated the Twitter Rules". Anonymous updated their tweet by removing the link.

Many activists took Ukraine's calls on the hacker underground to defend against Russia to heart. Earlier today, Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking down Russia's most prominent websites used to spread Kremlin propaganda. Even Pornhub had its say by blocking Russian users and greeting them with the Ukrainian flag and a message of support.

Meanwhile, Russia has also opened a cyber front. Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) said the hackers were using password-stealing emails to break into Ukrainian soldiers' email accounts and using the compromised address books to send further malicious messages.

According to Reuters, a Russia-based cybercrime group Conti, known for using ransomware to extort millions of dollars from US and European companies, vowed on Friday to attack enemies of the Kremlin if they respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In a blog post, the Conti group said it was announcing its "full support" for the government of President Vladimir Putin.

"If anybody will decide to organize a cyberattack or any war activities against Russia, we are going to use our all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy," the Conti blog post read.


Ukrainian activists release personal data of more than 100 thousands of Russian soldiers

on 02/26/2022 | | News | Russian-Ukrainian war 

On February 18, before the start of the Russian invasion, the US intelligence warned that Russia had compiled long lists of Ukrainians who would resist the invasion using military or non-violent means and who are targeted to be killed or tortured to death in concentration camps, if Russia’s invasion plans succeed. 

Today is the third day of Russian artillery and rocket strikes on the peaceful cities of Ukraine. The first strikes came at 5am on February 24th and resulted in casualties among both the military and civilians. And while the whole world is hesitating, trying to figure out if they should be afraid of Russia, or apply personal sanctions to the Russian leaders, or cut off Russia from SWIFT, Ukrainians are bravely standing against the army of the largest country in the world. The international volunteer community InformNapalm believes that the world needs to have as much information as possible to help investigate in the future the multitudes of Russian war crimes. We do not judge; we only make public the data that has immense public value for meeting today’s challenges.

Earlier this year, the E_N_I_G_M_A hacker group published the first part of a large-scale leak of the personal data of Russian soldiers, totaling 22,713 individuals.

InformNapalm volunteers compared the data in this leak with our database of OSINT investigations that contains over 2630 soldiers that have participated in the Russian aggression since 2014. We found 8 people in the leak that have also been identified in our investigations. In particular there are soldiers of the following units: 02511 (138th Motorized Infantry Brigade), 06017 (336th Marine Brigade), 32406 (53th Air Defense Brigade – the one that shot down the flight MH17), 12102 (20th Chemical Defense Regiment), 54046 (3rd Motorized Infantry Division).

This match suggests that the leaked list may include many other Russian soldiers who are connected to the aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2021 or to the current invasion.

Here is the leaked data, with our addition of a separate list of the 8 soldiers found in both lists. Table of 22,713 Russian soldiers

Recently the hackers released the second part of the list that contains 97,266 individuals, including their passport data, military ranks, units, etc. It is available here.

Considering that following the order of the dictator and the war criminal Putin, the Russian Army has begun a massive invasion against Ukraine and that we now don’t have the time to verify every person on the list, we are publishing the data as is since it is important for the public as a tool for future investigation of war crimes of the Russian Army in Ichkeria, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine. 

Please save this data, we will need it to find every single war criminal and judge them based on their actions in those wars. 

Glory to Ukraine!

Read more related material from InformNapalm:

Proofs of the Russian Aggression: InformNapalm releases extensive database of evidence

Volunteers gathered evidence of 35 Russian military units taking part in the invasion of Crimea

Advanced Russian artillery reconnaissance system Navodchik-2 spotted in Donbas for the first time

By end of year, Russia plans to set up twenty new military units near its western borders

Hactivist Group Anonymous Has Declared ‘Cyber War’ Against Russia

 (And They’re Reportedly Scoring Direct Hits)

KIMBERLY RICCI
FILM/TV EDITORFEBRUARY 25, 2022

The Russian invasion and deadly bombing of Ukraine has left a lot of people staring at their TV and computer screens and wondering what, if anything, can be done to help. There’s not much direct action for most of us to take, unfortunately, although Chris Evans has called attention to how a former Ukrainian president was poisoned and disfigured while running against a pro-Russia candidate.

 That’s more than a few other prominent social media users and TV/WWE stars have done. However, the Anonymous collective group of hackers claims to be doing a lot from behind their own screens.

Anonymous, of course, doesn’t exist behind verified accounts on Twitter, given the nature of their anonymity, but they’re apparently standing with Ukraine. One purported Twitter account declared that they’re intending to “change the world” and “stand up against anything.” The account also called for the Russian people to take a stand against this war as well.

The customary “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. Expect us” mantra does not bode well for Russia so far. The group claimed to have breached (and subsequently leaked) database information from the Russian Ministry of Defence.

In addition, the group announced that they took down the RT News website that corresponds to the Russian state (propaganda) TV station of the same name.

The RT News editor-in-chief confirmed (via Twitter) that the site was attacked but that “RT has been able to repel the hit on their servers.”

The decentralized collective can be found across many Twitter handles, but one account in particular is expressing a lot of the group’s apparent rationale. “When the world turns to chaos because of fools leading other fools to violence, we may feel powerless,” they wrote. “Understand together we are not powerless. Even a singular voice of reason in the darkness can be a beacon of light for many. Speak out. Be heard. Be righteous in all that you do.”

And if anyone wants to thank Anonymous, they’re not having it. “No need to thank us, seriously,” they wrote. “We’re just doing what we think is right because if no one stands up against oppression, who will? Everyone should be standing up at this point. We’re in 2022, not 1922.”





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Facebook bans Russia state media from running adverts, monetising

Move comes hours after Moscow said it was limiting access to Facebook amid fact-checking dispute and invasion of Ukraine.

Facebook logo
Published On 26 Feb 2022

Facebook says it has restricted Russian state media’s ability to earn money on the social media platform as Moscow’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine reached the streets of Kyiv.

“We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetising on our platform anywhere in the world,” Nathaniel Gleicher, the social media giant’s security policy head, said on Twitter on Friday.

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list of 3 itemsend of list

He added that Facebook would “continue to apply labels to additional Russian state media”.

Facebook’s parent company Meta said earlier on Friday that Russia would hit its services with restrictions after it refused authorities’ order to stop using fact checkers and content warning labels on its platforms

Social media networks have become one of the fronts in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, home to sometimes misleading information but also real-time monitoring of a quickly developing conflict that marks Europe’s biggest geopolitical crisis in decades.

“Yesterday, Russian authorities ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling of content posted on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media organisations,” Meta’s Nick Clegg said in a statement. “We refused.”

His statement came hours after Russia’s media regulator said it was limiting access to Facebook, accusing the American tech giant of censorship and violating the rights of Russian citizens.

On Wednesday, Facebook also released a feature in Ukraine that allows people to lock their profiles for increased security, using a tool the company also deployed after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last year.

Gleicher said Facebook had set up a special operations centre to monitor the situation in Ukraine “in response to the unfolding military conflict”.

Ukraine invasion: Russians get limited access to Facebook, others

February 26, 2022 Editor World Stage 

Kyiv city

Russia has limited access to Facebook over the platform’s stance on the accounts of several Moscow-backed news outlets amid the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor accused the network of “censorship” and violating “the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens”.

Facebook said it had refused to stop fact-checking and labelling content from state-owned news organisations.

The move came a day after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine.

It is unclear what the regulator restrictions mean, or to what extent Facebook’s parent company Meta’s other platforms – WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram – are affected.

The regulator had demanded Facebook lift the restrictions it placed on Thursday on state news agency RIA, state TV channel Zvezda, and pro-Kremlin news sites Lenta.Ru and Gazeta.Ru.

It said that Meta had “ignored” these requests.


Sir Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Meta, said Russian authorities “ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling” the outlets’ content.

“We refused,” he said.

But he made clear he wanted Russians to continue to use Meta’s platforms.

“Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organise for action”, Sir Nick said, and the company wants “them to continue to make their voices heard”.

Many state-owned media outlets in Russia have painted a largely positive picture of Russian military advances in Ukraine, calling the invasion a “special military operation” that had been forced on Moscow.

On Thursday Meta said it had set up a “special operations centre” to monitor content about the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia has its own Facebook equivalents, VK and Odnoklassniki, but Facebook is also popular in the country – as is Meta-owned Instagram.

On Friday, US Senator Mark Warner said Facebook, YouTube and other social media services had “a clear responsibility to ensure that your products are not used to facilitate human rights abuses”.

Meta, has been under pressure to label misinformation – and has been working with outside fact-checkers, including Reuters.

Moscow has also increased pressure on domestic media, threatening to block reports that contain what it describes as “false information” regarding its invasion of Ukraine.

Twitter also told the BBC that its safety and integrity teams were “disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information and to advance the speed and scale of our enforcement”.
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Sanctions swing toward Putin himself as anger grows over Ukraine invasion


SAT, 26 FEB, 2022 - 
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the latest target of international sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine, with the US, Canada and European allies all announcing they are adding direct measures against him and his foreign minister.

With Russian forces on the outskirts of Ukraine’s capital, diplomatic appeals appeared to come second to imposing financial pain on Russia as global condemnation grew.

Asked if US President Joe Biden has planned any more direct diplomatic overtures towards Mr Putin, White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday told reporters he had not, but “it does not mean we have ruled out diplomacy forever”.

She said the US was preparing individual sanctions on Mr Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, likely to include travel bans.

The announcement came hours after the European Union announced it intended to freeze Mr Putin’s assets, and Boris Johnson told Nato leaders the UK would also sanction the president and Mr Lavrov.

Ms Psaki said the US would also newly sanction the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which functions as a sovereign wealth fund meant to draw capital into the Russian economy.

The US and European allies earlier announced sweeping asset freezes and other penalties against Russia’s banks, state-owned enterprises and elites.

The American measures block Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov – whom the Treasury Department’s formal announcement of the sanctions described as Mr Putin’s “chief propagandist” – from access to any assets within reach of US officials, and bar anyone in the States from doing business with them. Members of Russia’s security council were also sanctioned.

The sanctions would not ban contact between, for example, Mr Putin and Mr Biden, or US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Mr Lavrov.

It is unclear what the practical impact on Mr Putin and Mr Lavrov would be and how important their assets in Europe were.


Sergei Lavrov (Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service/AP)

EU ministers have said further sanctions are possible, including kicking Russia out of Swift, the dominant system for global financial transactions.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country supports the removal of Russia from Swift.

Russia has imposed its own tit-for-tat measures, banning British flights to and over its territory in retaliation to a similar UK ban on Aeroflot flights.

Russian authorities also announced the “partial restriction” of access to Facebook after the social media network limited the accounts of several Kremlin-backed media.

Moscow also vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding that it stop its attack on Ukraine and withdraw all troops.

The international measures against Russia have also included:

– An extraordinary visit by Pope Francis to the Russian embassy to “express his concern about the war”

– The Uefa Champions League final being stripped from St Petersburg

– Formula One dropping this season’s Russian Grand Prix in Sochi

– Russia banned from the Eurovision Song Contest in Italy in May

Countries in Asia and the Pacific have joined others in sanctioning Russian banks and leading companies and setting up export controls aimed at starving Russia’s industries and military of semiconductors and other hi-tech products.

Australia on Saturday said it was imposing sanctions against all 339 members of the Russian parliament as well as eight Russian oligarchs close to Mr Putin and is considering sanctions against the president and Mr Lavrov.

Japan and South Korea on Saturday said their foreign ministers had spoken with Mr Blinken, but Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi declined to say whether Tokyo plans to impose sanctions on Mr Putin or Mr Lavrov.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Mr Blinken thanked Seoul over its willingness to participate in international sanctions against Russia, without giving details.

China has continued to denounce sanctions against Russia and blamed the US and its allies for provoking Moscow. Beijing, worried about American power in Asia, has increasingly aligned its foreign policy with Russia to challenge the West.

Biden unveils 'severe' economic sanctions to make Putin a 'pariah on international stage'

The US President conceded there was a lack of Western unity for enacting an even tougher measure.

US President Joe Biden
US President Joe Biden
Image: Alamy Stock Photo

US PRESIDENT JOE Biden has announced “severe” economic sanctions to make Russian President Vladimir Putin a “pariah” for invading Ukraine, but conceded there was a lack of Western unity for enacting an even tougher measure.

In a speech from the White House, Biden said four more banks – including the two biggest, Sberbank & VTB – would be hit with sanctions by Western sanctions. In addition, export controls slapped on sensitive components will “cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports”.

“This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time,” Biden said.

Those measures, on top of a raft of other sanctions already announced this week, will make Putin “a pariah on the international stage,” Biden said.

“Any nation that countenances Russia’s naked aggression against Ukraine will be stained by association,” he said.

Biden confirmed that for now there was no attempt to put sanctions directly on Putin, who is widely reported to have amassed a huge, secret fortune during his two decades in power.

He also said that a much talked about move to cut Russia from the SWIFT international payments system – essentially crippling its banking sector - was not happening.

Ukraine pleaded for yanking Russia from SWIFT on Thursday, but Biden said that the Western coalition could not come to an agreement.

“It is always an option but right now that’s not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take,” he said.

G7 closes ranks

Biden spoke to the nation after having attended a virtual, closed-door meeting which lasted an hour and 10 minutes with the Group of Seven.

The group of rich Western democracies – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – said it was standing firm against Russia’s “threat to the rules-based international order”.

Biden tweeted that G7 leaders “agreed to move forward on devastating packages of sanctions and other economic measures to hold Russia to account. We stand with the brave people of Ukraine”.

In a joint statement, the seven industrial powers also said they were “ready to act” to minimize disruptions to world energy markets as a result of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine and with sanctions already targeting a major pipeline from heavyweight energy producer Russia.

In London, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain was freezing the UK assets of Russian titans in banking and arms manufacturing, sanctioning five more oligarchs, and banning Aeroflot.

And Germany’s vice chancellor, Robert Habeck, signalled on Thursday that the Western sanctions aimed to “cut off the Russian economy from industrial progress (and) dramatically limit access to the European and American markets.”

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Next step

A first round of Western sanctions was unleashed on Tuesday, after Putin announced he would send troops as “peacekeepers” to two small areas already controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.

The US government joined European allies in imposing sanctions on two Russian banks, Moscow’s sovereign debt, several oligarchs and other measures.

Then on Wednesday, as the Russian invasion force became clearly primed to attack, Biden announced he was imposing sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – one of Moscow’s highest-profile geopolitical projects.

Germany had earlier announced it would block the pipeline from opening for deliveries.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price warned this week that “no Russian financial institution is safe”.

But there are limitations to what Western countries can do at a time when the world is emerging from the Covid pandemic.

Energy and other big Russian sectors are for now considered off limits for sanctions. Even so, oil prices are soaring at over $100 a barrel – a surge that will hurt Western political leaders as voters feel pain at filling stations.

The United States is “not going to do anything which causes an unintended disruption to the flow of energy as the global economic recovery is still underway,” said deputy national security advisor, Daleep Singh.

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Ukrainian refugees start arriving in an unprepared Hungary


Ethnic Hungarians from the Transcarpathian region of Western Ukraine have crossed the border, many of them by foot or by bicycle.
By bne IntelliNews February 26, 2022



Hungary is ill-prepared to welcome Ukrainian refugees, mostly ethnic Hungarians, who have been arrriving at its borders, local media reported on February 25. So far, several thousand people, the majority of them ethnic Hungarians from the Transcarpathian region of Western Ukraine, have crossed the border, many of them by foot or by bicycle. Their number is far less than in Poland.

According to media reports, the state is not prepared for their arrival. There are no shelters, no information booths, only drivers offering trips to Budapest for €100-150, ten times the train ticket price.

Border towns are opening up their schools as temporary shelters, but there is no one at the borders to inform them. A number of refugees entering Hungary are staying with relatives, but many have nowhere to go.

Hungarian officials appear unprepared for the start of the Russian invasion. Hungary’s defence ministry just a day before the operation started was talking about the improbability of a Russian invasion. Pro-government pundits and columnist were poking fun of US officials speculating on the date of the  invasion.

Hungary's five border crossings with Ukraine are operating at full capacity, lines waiting on the Ukrainian side of the border now extend 3-5 km, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said in a video message on February 25.

Hungary has acted on requests by a number of countries to open a humanitarian corridor for their citizens leaving Ukraine, among them India, Iran, Ecuador, Israel, Zimbabwe, the Maldives, Mongolia and Jordan.

He added that legal measures have been taken allowing those people to enter Hungary without a visa and travel to the nearest airport to fly home. Szijjarto noted that Debrecen, Hungary's second-biggest city, has the closest international airport to the border with Ukraine. He said border crossing procedures for humanitarian deliveries to Ukraine crossing Hungary will be expedited, at the request of Ukraine.

On Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban consulted with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels at a meeting of heads of state and government of Nato members.

Together with Nato, Hungary is protecting Europe's borders. Hungary's security comes first, according to a short statement after the meeting.

Hungary’s government's tepid reaction to the attack on Ukraine reinforced views that Orban is walking a tight rope when it comes to criticising Vladimir Putin. 

Hungary is seen as Russia’s strongest ally in the EU. The government argues it wants to build strong ties to secure Hungary’s energy needs. The country gets 90% of its gas from Russia.

Hungarian prime minister fails to call Russian invasion an aggression
Hungary’s strongman, who was a guest of the Kremlin just three weeks ago and hailed his trip as being on a peace mission, has been one of the last EU leaders to condemn Russia’s invasion

By bne IntelliNews February 25, 2022

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has failed to call out the Russian invasion as aggression, instead stressing that Hungary must stay out of the military conflict. Orban is in a precarious situation as he faces a tight election in less than six weeks and has made Hungary dependent on Russian energy and nuclear technology.

"What matters most to us is the security of the Hungarian people," he said in a short message posted on Facebook, after an extraordinary session of the National Security Operative Corps. No details were published of the meeting.

"Sending either troops or military equipment to Ukraine was out of the question, though we will, of course, provide humanitarian aid,” Orban said, reflecting on comments by Peter Marki-Zay, the prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition, who hinted that if he was in power, he would comply with Nato's request to help Ukraine with guns and even with troops.

Orban claimed the opposition's proposals would endanger Hungary's gas and energy supplies and the utility price cuts.

Hungary’s strongman, who was a guest of the Kremlin just three weeks ago and hailed his trip as being on a peace mission, has been one of the last EU leaders to condemn Russia’s invasion. It was just a short comment in his Facebook video and did not go beyond that, unlike his V4 or EU peers, who used strong words to denounce Russia’s military action.

The government's communication showed signs of wavering, as a Facebook post well into the morning was talking just about a "military operation in Ukraine". The pro-government press still echoed the pro-Russian stance when the conflict started. Defence Minister Tibor Benko on Wednesday evening basically repeated the Russian position on the two breakaway regions, blaming Ukraine for the threat of war.

Just a couple of days ago, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto was talking about the need to tone down the hysteria, referring to US and Nato warnings about a possible Russian attack. On the morning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he posted from Bahrain, saying war was the worst-case scenario and the task now is to ensure the security of all Hungarians

Political analysts say Orban is treading a careful line as he is under pressure to supports sanctions imposed by the EU, but also being closely aligned with Moscow, he has a lot to lose economically if they are too strong. Stressing the importance of energy supply and maintaing low gas prices was clearly a message to voters before the April 3rd elections.

Fidesz' base also remains predominantly pro-Russian and by condemning Putin with harsh worlds, he risks losing voters to radical rightwing Our Homeland, which is just barely below the 5% ceiling.

Orban went to Moscow on the first day of February to hammer out a deal to increase Russian gas supplies by 1 bcm to 5.5 bcm, but no agreement was reached. Hungary signed a 15-year contract with Gazprom in October.

The expansion of the Paks power plant could be in jeopardy if Russian businesses are hard-hit by sanctions. The main constructor of the project, Rosatom, has failed to receive the final permit for building two 1,200 MW blocks and the €12.5bn investment is five to six years behind schedule. VTB, the bank financing the €10bn loan, is on the sanction list.

Opposition parties criticised Orban for "his refusal to condemn the war started by Russia" and the steps taken by Putin "even when the lives of Transcarpathian Hungarians are in danger". An estimated 150,000 ethnic Hungarians live in the western part of the country.

Hungary has attacked Ukraine’s education law for being discriminatory, creating a bitter dispute between the two countries. Hungary has blocked Ukraine’s talks on Nato accession unless Kiev changes the regulations.

"As a member of the EU and Nato, Orban should condemn Putin's aggression against Ukraine and join EU sanctions against Russia by suspending the expansion of the Paks power plant and expel with immediate effect the Russian spy bank", Marki-Zay said on Thursday, referring to Budapest-based International Investment Bank (IIB), which moved its HQ from Moscow in 2019.

The opposition alliance is planning a rally in a show of solidary for Ukraine in front of the Russian embassy in Budapest.

Hungarian authorities, churches, and charity groups are preparing for the flood of refugees. Traffic has jammed up at the half dozen border crossings on the 130km long border with Ukraine, with a waiting time of one to two hours, according to police reports from the late afternoon.

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