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“We’ve never seen so many different players emerge like this before,” says Adam Meyers, vice president of US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

But what is the real value of leaked databases and crippled websites when city centers are under heavy artillery bombardment of millions of people? And how much influence has this international “army” really had? It’s hard to say. When the IT Army sends out an IP address, the target usually drops – usually sooner or later. Many Russian sites now only work within Russia itself because they deny all connections from abroad, a defense against international attacks of this scale, which has no historical precedent.

But denial-of-service attacks are technically simple, easily reversible, and far less devastating than Russian missiles hitting city centers and Ukrainian Molotov cocktails fired to repel the invading army.

All this plays a role in the information war that is taking place in both countries and the world. Russia’s attacks on the Ukrainian government and financial institutions in the days before the invasion seemed designed to undermine confidence in Kiev’s leadership. Likewise, the Ukrainian government’s attempts to crack down on Russian government sites and broadcast its own messages inside Russia are Kiev’s information warfare. Ukraine’s ground and cyber-front resistance is bolstered by support from the West, which is a crucial lifeline when the country’s capital is almost completely besieged.

“Cyber ​​is a tool used in warfare and espionage,” Meyers says. “There is an open armed conflict. This is no different from Ukraine asking people to come to the country to buy a Kalashnikov and help fight the Russians on the ground.”

But when you’re in Washington or London, the picture looks a little different. Western governments have condemned cyberattacks from Russian soil for years. What now, now that Ukraine has openly appealed to hackers for help?

“Even though the United States government says, ‘We don’t allow activists to use American routers to DDoS attacks on your government propaganda sites,’ Russia probably won’t believe it,” says Michael E. van Landingham, a former Russia analyst. at the CIA. “Russia uses cyber tools as an extension of state power. And Russian leaders take too many mirror images. I think they will perceive attacks from Anonymous or any Western collective as attacks promoted by Western governments.”

Much of what the Ukrainian IT Army supports is clearly a crime in the United States and every Western country. But the situation raises more than legal questions; it also foregrounds new moral and geopolitical questions.

“Governments in the West must strictly enforce anti-hacking laws against anyone who attempts to tamper with or do anything with Russian or DDoS sites. [illegal] in cyberspace,” says van Landingham. “This is the only signal we need to show that this is not a CIA plan, not a Cyber ​​Command attack – that’s the person and that’s what we’re doing about it.”

Despite the chaotic environment, the apparent lack of major verifiable cyber operations to coincide with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the great unknowns that loomed over the entire war. Russia has launched devastating cyberattacks on Ukraine in recent years, but so far it has remained in conventional warfare since its invasion. The question is whether it can still turn to cyber in the weeks and months to come as the war drags on.