People value and need each other: Russian President Putin and Belarusian President Lukashenko.Image: Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP/Dmitriy Azarov
Ukrainian hackers have infiltrated Russian military systems for months – revealing how Moscow appears to be using Belarusian infrastructure for attacks.
Feb 22, 2026, 2:36 p.mFeb 22, 2026, 2:36 p.m
Anna Von Stefanelli
While drones fly over Ukrainian cities and fields, analysts elsewhere sit in front of screens and observe what is happening on the opposing side. Now research from the Ukrainian cyber community shows how deep this digital front goes – and what role Belarus plays in it.
As the Ukrainian portal “Militarnyi” reports, hackers have managed to gain access to Russian military accounts. The operation was carried out by the Fenix cyber analysis center in collaboration with the international intelligence community Informnapalm.
Six months in the system of drone pilots from Russia
Loud Militarnyi The cyber experts hacked into the accounts of dozens of Russian military personnel. This gave them access to monitoring systems used by Russian drone operators.
Cyberwar is less visible than military action, but fundamental.Image: dpa / Philip Dulian
Important: The Ukrainian hackers did not take control of the drones. However, they were able to monitor the operators’ activities and relay information to the Ukrainian Defense Forces in real time. Secret service employees therefore organized covert monitoring of the compromised accounts “around the clock”. The data obtained was immediately transmitted to the Ukrainian armed forces.
This “significantly improved” the defenders’ overview of the situation and made it possible to “effectively shoot down and suppress” Russian drones, reports “Militarnyi”, citing Informnapalm.
The cyber operation ran for more than six months, according to the report. Its operational reconnaissance value was only exhausted in February 2026. One reason for this was that during this time Ukrainian armed forces carried out several successful attacks on Russian command posts and drone launch sites in Russia and the occupied territories of Ukraine. Locations of the Russian elite unit “Rubikon” are also mentioned.
Hackers reveal Belarus as infrastructure hub in Ukraine war
The findings regarding the role of Belarus are particularly explosive. As early as September 2025, analysts evaluating intercepted chats from Russian operators found that Russia was actively using civilian infrastructure on Belarusian territory. Specifically, it’s about cell phone masts. These would be used to ensure stable signals for drone attacks on targets on Ukraine’s northern and western borders.
In some cases, drones flew into the airspace of NATO states, the report says. On the night of September 9th to 10th, 2025, dozens of Russian drones flew over Poland. According to the information evaluated, this was a test of new tactics in which the Belarusian civilian mobile communications infrastructure played a role.
The aim was therefore to attack logistics routes in Ukraine and Poland in order to interrupt the supply of Western weapons and equipment to Ukraine. The relevant information was passed on to NATO partners as early as September 2025.
Putin and Lukashenko: Relationship brings sanctions
The relationship between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin has been considered close for years, but is characterized by clear power asymmetries.
Belarus is heavily dependent on Russia economically and in terms of security policy, among other things because of cheap energy supplies and military cooperation. After the controversial presidential elections in Belarus in 2020 and the ensuing mass protests, Lukashenko moved even closer to Moscow.
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Belarus has, among other things, made its territory available to Russia for military purposes.
In any case, the political climax of the cyber operation came on February 18, 2026. On that day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced sanctions against the Belarusian ruler. He cited his involvement in the “escalation and extension of the war by the aggressor state Russia” as the reason.
Informnapalm emphasizes that the experiences from this and other successful cyber operations have provided important insights: that deep infiltration of enemy communications, planning and coordination systems has a “significant influence” on the course of combat operations.
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