Anonymous hacks entire Russian Ministry of Defense, Twitter removes links

On the 25th of February, Anonymous kicked off cyberattacks on Putin's invasion of Ukraine in a very big way. In addition to knocking both Gazprom and the Russian Ministry of "Defense" (MoD)off the Internet, they cracked the MoD server and published everything they found. A Twitter post linked to the captured data-and Twitter cravenly took the post down.

Information captured from Russia's so-called Ministry of "Defense" can be useful to all forces defending Ukraine as targetting information. The Ukraniain military, guerilla forces in Ukraine and Russia alike, and supporters globally need this information to find and destroy enemies and assets responsible for the war. By interfering with the distribution of this material, Twitter is choosing to fight on the side of Vladimar Putin. Twitter is making choices that benefit Putin while the people of Ukraine bleed and die to defend their homes, and Russian citizens brave arrest and even torture to protest Putin's war of raw aggression. Wartime choices have consequences, such sanctions as a public boycott of advertisers on Twitter could do severe damage to their bottom line.

The war is not going as well for Putin as he hoped: In just two days of fighting 2,800 Russian troops have been killed, 80 of their tanks have been knocked out, 516 other armored vehicles destroyed, and 7 helicopters shot down. These are the numbers as of 3PM Ukraine time on Feb 25. Putin of course cares nothing about Russian conscripts returning home in bodybags so long as their families don't show up outside the Kremlin with pitchforks and torches. Those thousands protesting in Moscow could grow to millions faster than police can round them up. Alternately police, prisons, and torture could force Russian opponents of Putin to pick up the gun themselves, extending the coming guerilla war right to the heart of Moscow. This sort of thing stemming from an winning but too-expensive Russian role in WWI cost the Czar both his office and his life.

As for the cyber battlefield, in that arena Putin may have met his match or even be overmatched.