The US FBI and American companies are cooperating with Ukraine to help collect evidence of war crimes committed by the Russian occupiers. This includes geolocation and various information from mobile phones.
The Ukrainian military, together with the authorities, is collecting digital information from battlefields and Ukrainian cities that Russia destroyed after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This was stated by FBI Special Agent Alex Kobzanets, who previously worked as the agency’s legal attaché in Ukraine.
According to Reuters, during the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco, he said that collecting and analysing this data, as well as working with it, is something the FBI has extensive experience in. According to him, the processing includes the study of information from mobile phones, forensic analysis of DNA samples, as well as the analysis of body parts collected in the fields where the fighting took place.
“The next step will be to work with national US service providers and share this information… to get information about subscribers, to get geolocation information where possible,” added Alex Kobzanets. This means deepening cooperation between the US and Ukraine on the cyber front. In this area, Russia is a common enemy for them.
The special agent added that over the past year and a half, FBI specialists have been working with Ukrainian officials to help identify Russian collaborators and spies operating in Ukraine, as well as Russians operating outside Kyiv when the full-scale war began.
US security companies and officials are Ukraine’s main partner in its efforts to counter Russian cyberattacks, which it has been fighting since at least 2015.
Ilya Vitiuk, head of the SBU’s cybersecurity department, said that the number of Russian attacks against Ukraine has increased over the past few years, and in recent months they have become more targeted. “It is very important for us to get as much information as possible about Russian cybercriminals… because we collect all this information and attach it to our criminal cases,” said Vitiuk. He added that the case of cyber war crimes is something new, and we are now witnessing the first full-scale cyber war.
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