As part of the campaign against Ukraine, the Russians are launching other moves, based on a comprehensive war concept known as "hybrid warfare".
This concept combines classic efforts with the use of "soft" force, which aims to achieve military and political goals - without military force.
For example, Russian intelligence operates agents on Ukrainian soil, whose job it is to cause unrest among the pro-Russian population, and to create guerrilla operations against the Ukrainian army.
This campaign was also joined by Chechen assassins, who are seeking to hunt down the Ukrainian president and assassinate him.
At the same time, a comprehensive campaign of psychological warfare is being waged, in the form of campaigns of influence designed to sow fear and terror among the local population, influence the Ukrainian leadership, encourage pro-Russian residents to take action and even send threatening and warning messages to the US and NATO.
Russian psychological warfare uses all media, internet and social media infrastructure.
But the most prominent component in Russian hybrid warfare is cyber warfare.
Similar to the 2014 campaign, Russia operates a large cyber-attack system, partly based on intelligence capabilities and partly on pro-Russian hacker groups, which have very advanced attack capabilities.
Hacker groups have been carrying out cyber attacks throughout Europe, the United States and even in Israel for many years.
The aim is to attack the critical national infrastructures in Ukraine, including electricity, water, medicine, banking, railways, communications networks and other national infrastructures.
Attacking and disabling national infrastructure is aiding the Russian military in disrupting the Ukrainian military's defense capabilities, disrupting command and control systems, impeding the ability to provide vital services to civilians (including electricity and health services) and wreaking havoc on all.
For example, in the first cyber attack, on January 14, some 70 government sites in Ukraine were attacked and shut down, including the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Defense.
The Russian attackers left a message for users when accessing the sites: "Ukrainians - all information about you is now public. You must be afraid and expect the worst!".
The Russian attack included disabling access to servers of government ministries and vital organizations.
But Russian cyber is also being targeted at NATO countries, the European Union and the United States, where signs of attacks against government websites, banks, trains and more have already begun to emerge.
NATO's concern reached a point where on Friday, February 25, the NATO Secretary General stated at a press conference that "Russia's cyber attacks on Allies may be grounds for enforcing Article 5" - the Allied mutual defense clause, which allows an armed response to some extent Of the use of force against one of the states.
In light of the statement of support for Ukraine, it is recommended that Israel's cyber network, government ministries, police and security bodies, immediately increase vigilance and monitoring of vital systems, to prevent damage to critical national infrastructure as a result of Russia's response to Foreign Ministry statements.
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