Russia’s Cyber Campaigns and the Ukraine War: From the ‘Gray Zone’ to the ‘Red Zone’

Abstract

This article examines Russia’s cyber campaigns against Ukraine and shines some light into this corner of the ‘gray zone’ and into the ‘red zone’ warfare inflicted upon Ukraine. Hitherto, there has been a lack of in-depth, systematic studies in relation to state-on-state cyber attacks. This article means to begin to bridge this gap in knowledge with its focus on Ukraine while arguing that Russia’s cyber campaigns are components of a wider suite of active measures/hybrid warfare engagements from its state and substate entities. For the Kremlin, hybrid warfare (gibridnaya voina) is fought with all the tools at their disposal on a ‘battlefield’ that stretches beyond the four modern domains of land, sea, air, and space. The fifth domain of cyberspace is increasingly important for espionage, cyberwar, and influence operations.