https://techmonitor.ai/policy/geopolitics/capacity-building-how-us-boosts-allies-cyber-defences

Most of Kiev’s residents were asleep when the power cut happened. As the clock approached the stroke of midnight, anyone who was awake in Ukraine’s capital on the night of December 17th 2016 would have suddenly seen all of their lights and appliances wink out and the surrounding streets plunged into darkness. Those select few would also soon realise that this power cut wasn’t the result of any damage to the grid, but a cyberattack – the second such incident in under a year.

Identifying the perpetrators of this kind of attack usually requires a thorough investigation. In the case of the 2016 attack on Kiev’s power grid, however, the culprit was obvious. Two years previously, Ukraine was almost split in two as Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country declared the region’s independence, while Russia itself annexed Crimea. As relations between Moscow and Kiev went into deep freeze, Ukraine became a training ground for Russian hackers. In just one two-month period in 2016, the Ukrainian government attributed some 6,500 cyberattacks to Russia, targeting everything from businesses and broadcasters, to government agencies and railway operators.