BY
An Ukrainian hacker group
claims to have obtained emails from Vladislav Surkov, a top aide to Russian
President Vladimir Putin, which detail a purported Kremlin
plan to destabilize Ukraine in the coming months.
CyberJunta, the group behind
the alleged hack, released email exchanges
belonging to Surkov, a scan of passports belonging to Surkov and his family,
and 22 pages from documents outlining a plan to support nationalist and
separatist politicians and to encourage early parliamentary elections in
Ukraine, all with the aim of undermining the government in Kiev.
“It is necessary to create
favorable conditions for controllable political forces to enter the new
parliament,” said a report released by the hacking group. “As a result of
fundamental changes in the Ukrainian political situation, it is possible to achieve
the return of the Donbass to Ukraine on Russian terms,” details the alleged
plan, referring to the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine between government
forces and pro-Russian separatists. The report added that the best time
to take action would be from November 2016 to March 2017.
Oleksandr Tkachuk, the chief
of staff to the head of the SBU, Ukraine’s intelligence service, said on TV Tuesday that
experts from the agency examined the documents released by CyberJunta, and
believe them to be real.
“We only have access to the
files released to the public and do not have contacts with the hacker group
that released them,” Tkachuk said. “So, we don’t have the ability to determine
whether the documents were changed after they were received by electronic
mail.”
Often referred to as the “gray
cardinal” of the Kremlin, Surkov has been a senior official since Putin assumed
office in 1999 and is believed the be the architect of the modern Russian
political system. Surkov has served as first deputy chief of the presidential
administration, deputy prime minister, and most recently as a personal
advisor to Putin on Ukraine and the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia.
Surkov is believed to have played a key role in Russia’s annexation
of Crimea in 2014 and is on both the United States and European Union’s
sanctions lists for helping to orchestrate the land grab. He is the
Kremlin’s lead negotiator on the stalled peace talks in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian presidential
administration and the SBU declined requests for comment on the alleged hack.
Speaking to reporters on
Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Surkov’s involvement in any
plot to foment unrest in Ukraine, and said that the documents released by the
hacking group were not real.
“I’ve known Surkov for more
than ten years and all sorts of things have always been imputed to him,” said
Peskov. “In most cases, it has nothing to do with the real state of things.”
Little is known about the
group behind the hack and their origins and motivations. However, CyberJunta
says that it is working in conjunction with other hacker groups known as
FalconsFlame, RUH8, and Trinity and that they plan to release more documents belonging to Surkov in
the coming days.
Democracy Lab’s Ilya Lozovsky
contributed to this report.
Photo credit: ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images
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