Russia jails man for 16 years over pro-Ukraine cyberattacks on critical infrastructure

A Russian court has sentenced a man to 16 years in a high-security penal colony for launching cyberattacks that disrupted critical infrastructure, authorities said on Wednesday.

Andrei Smirnov, a resident of the Siberian city of Belovo, was detained in October 2023 and charged with treason. Prosecutors said he held pro-Ukrainian views and joined a hacker group allegedly acting in the interests of Ukrainian intelligence.

According to their investigation, Smirnov used malware to attack Russian information systems in 2022, blocking access to websites of several local companies and damaging critical infrastructure. Russian authorities did not specify which infrastructure or companies were affected.

The local security service previously told Russian media that the suspect — whose name was not disclosed at the time — used a messenger app to join the Ukrainian cyber forces, which are "overseen by Ukrainian intelligence," in order to carry out cyberattacks.

At the time of his arrest, Russian broadcasters aired a video showing Federal Security Service (FSB) officers tackling a man to the ground, handcuffing him and forcing him into a car. They later searched his home and examined his computer equipment.

Smirnov’s case is among hundreds brought by Russian authorities in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to the rights group First Department, at least 792 people have been prosecuted for treason, espionage or cooperation with foreign states since the start of the war.

Activists say that FSB agents often initiate conversations with their suspects on social media, typically starting with casual topics before shifting to questions about the war. They pretend to share similar views in order to provoke responses that can later be used as grounds for opening a criminal case.

In a separate case in May, a Russian court sentenced a hospital IT specialist from Bratsk to 14 years in prison. Prosecutors accused him of copying the medical records of Russian soldiers from his work computer and attempting to transfer them to Ukrainian authorities in April 2022.

Another Russian citizen, a university student detained on the same day as Smirnov, was sentenced to six years in a penal colony for allegedly aiding hacker groups linked to Ukrainian security services. It is not clear if their cases are connected.