MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In late December, the US-based cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike claimed that Russian intelligence infected an application used by Ukrainian forces to speed up howitzer fire with trojan malware between 2014 and 2016, covering the span of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The firm, which has a history of accusing Russia of various hacking operations such as the recent compromising US Democratic Party leak, claimed that the cyberattack resulted in as much as 80 percent of Ukraine's howitzers being disabled.
"Due to various media reports that 80 percent of Ukrainian D-30 howitzers had been destroyed by a Russian hacker cyberattack, the army command of Ukraine's armed forces states that the given information is not true," the ministry said in a statement.
The Donbass conflict erupted in April 2014 as a local counter-reaction to the West-sponsored Maidan coup in Kiev that had toppled legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held independence referendums and proclaimed the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev has since been conducting a military operation, encountering stiff local resistance.
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