Ukraine accuses Russia of cyber-attack on two banks and its defence ministry

Russia has been accused of being behind a string of cyber-attacks against Ukraine since the 2014 war between the two countries, and some experts believe that if the Kremlin does de-escalate militarily, similar deniable attacks could follow.

Some of the incidents in the years following the war alarmed the west. Two brief regional power outages in December 2015 and 2016 were blamed on Russian hackers from the GRU military intelligence, according to a US indictment.

The political cost of such attacks is relatively low. Periodically western intelligence agencies will accuse the Russian actors as being behind such hacking, but the Kremlin is resistant to embarrassment. The US also seeks to indict individuals but as Russia will not extradite them, there is no danger of any trials going ahead.

Yet the goal of any cyber-attacks need not be a dramatic effort to knock out a utility or banking system; it could simply be to wear out the morale of a country like Ukraine.