Key Takeaways
The Council of the European Union has announced sanctions against three Officers of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) responsible for orchestrating cyberattacks against Estonia in 2020.
For their role in the 2020 attacks, Nikolay Korchagin, Vitaly Shevchenko and Yuriy Denisov are subject to asset freezes and an EU-wide travel ban.
In a statement on Tuesday, Jan. 27, the EU said cyberattacks were carried out by the Russian military targeted several government departments.
The attacks allegedly compromised thousands of confidential documents, including health and business records.
The EU attributed the attacks to covert Unit 29155, a secret GRU unit that has been in operation since at least 2008.
Over the years, a number of incidents of alleged espionage have been connected to Unit 29155.
These include the 2014 warehouse explosions in Vrbětice, Czech Republic, and the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, England.
In September 2024, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Unit 29155 was responsible for “computer network operations against global targets for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm.”
It also warned that the unit had used a malware strain known as WhisperGate to target Ukrainian organizations.