Pierluigi Paganini
November 03, 2023
The Russian intelligence agency Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested two individuals who are suspected of supporting Ukrainian entities to carry out cyberattacks to disrupt Russian critical infrastructure.
The two men are facing high treason charges and could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
The authorities did not disclose the names of the suspects who were arrested in Tomsk and Kuzbass.
One of the suspects is a student at Tomsk University, he studied at the Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics and “expressed his commitment to the Ukrainian side.”
The man provided its support to Pro-Ukraine hacker groups that operated under the coordination of the security forces of Ukraine. The man took part in cyber operations against Russian information infrastructure facilities.
The second individual is believed to be a member of the Ukrainian cyber forces, he was detained in Belovo, in the Kemerovo region.
The Russian intelligence did not reveal if the two arrests are related.
“Investigators opened a criminal case against each of the hackers under Art. 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (high treason in the form of providing assistance to a foreign state or foreign organization, maximum punishment – life imprisonment). The FSB reports do not indicate whether the cases in Tomsk and Kuzbass are related.” states the newspaper Kommersant.
According to sources of Kommersant-Siberia, the Tomsk student has been transferred to the capital’s Lefortovo pre-trial detention center.
The Russian media outlet published a video of the arrest of one of the suspects and the searchers performed by the FSB agents at the suspect’s home.
Recently law enforcement officers detained a 23-year-old resident of the Krasnoyarsk Territory on suspicion of collaboration with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), reported the Kommersant-Sibir.
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