Ukrainian hackers obtain documents proving Russia's intentions to go to war with West

InformNapalm reported the information.

The investigators focused on the Russian research institution "Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences" (INION), which experienced a significant fire in 2015. Following the incident, Russian officials discussed the need to reconstruct the institution, and the renovation concluded in 2022. Notably, the same company involved in the alleged restoration of the temporarily occupied Mariupol carried out the reconstruction.

During this period, the institution underwent changes in its leadership. Between the time of the fire and 2019, four directors took charge. The current director is Aleksei Kuznetsov, a graduate of the esteemed MGIMO Institute of International Relations, who has been overseeing the institution since then. The CyberResistance group gained access to the email account of Kuznetsov's assistant, Roman Seitkaliev, formally a researcher but effectively acting as Kuznetsov's secretary.

Within Roman Seitkaliev's emails, hackers discovered a message to Yuri Pushchaev, a doctor of philosophy and senior researcher at INION. In the communication, Seitkaliev congratulates Pushchaev on the success of his work and highlights that this achievement was sanctioned at the highest level.

There are three documents mentioned:

• Pushchaev's article "The War in Ukraine and De-Westernization as a Historical Task: Opportunities and Limits" from the 2023 almanac "Notebooks of Conservatism"
• a letter from INION Director Kuznetsov to the Chairman of the State Duma Volodin with a proposal to consider the analysis of the socio-political situation in Russia conducted by INION experts;
• Volodin's letter to President Putin with proposals to implement the concept of "de-Westernization" in Russia after the elections.

"According to Volodin's letter, no one in Russia's ruling circles doubts Putin's re-election, and back in November-December last year, the Russian authorities were formulating plans for the post-election period. The letter itself is dated November 30, and as it follows from Putin's "I agree" resolution, he saw the document on December 12, 2023," the investigators noted.

"On the same day, he signed quite a few laws, including amendments to the criminal code (increasing the length of sentence for parole), and strengthening some control measures on the Internet," InformNapalm added.

The letter states that Russia needs transformation and measures that will strengthen it in the face of future challenges. The proposed measures include increased censorship, particularly on TV and the Internet, addressing the issue of opposition movements, and moderate clericalization of society.

"Such steps, according to Volodin, are intended to ‘transform society and move to accelerated mobilization in the post-election period,’ and the State Duma committees are ready to support the initiative and start drafting bills at the leader's command," the investigators note.

They point out that the concept seems to have already been agreed with Kiriyenko, the Deputy Chief of Staff of Russia’s Presidential Administration. The document bears a signature that looks like his.

INION believes that the return of traumatized men from what they term "special military operation," alongside a rise in the retirement age and stagnant growth rates of salaries and pensions, will stir unrest within Russian society. To forestall this, they advocate for perpetuating chaos beyond the state borders, effectively redirecting citizens' attention from domestic issues to external stimuli.

"In fact, this is a veiled recognition of the inevitability of a new world war and the expansion of Russia's expansion into the Baltic states and Poland. It is noteworthy that a recent article by the German outlet Bild already describes a scenario of a Russian attack on the Baltic states," the investigators summarized.

• In January, Bild wrote that Germany had prepared a scenario in case Ukraine lost the war. NATO stated that this document is an imaginary situation to test military capabilities.