Hackers expose Ukrainian ‘drone pilots’

18 Jun, 2024 11:14 / Updated 6 months ago
Purported details have been published of military personnel involved in operations against Russia

A hacker group has leaked a purported database of more than 1,000 Ukrainian military personnel, including drone pilots allegedly linked to attacks on civilian targets.

The list was revealed on Tuesday by a group calling itself ‘Russian angry hackers did it’ (RaHDit). It includes profiles of over 1,100 people who are allegedly part of Kiev’s robotic aircraft forces, described as “those who drop grenades from the sky on our guys, give targets to artillery, and strike civilians in the deep rear.”

The entries include images, phone numbers, home addresses, serial numbers of identification documents, email addresses, links to social media pages, and other kinds of personal information.

Roughly half of the doxxed individuals are allegedly members of the 383rd Remotely Controlled Aircraft Regiment. RaHDit claims it obtained an entire list of personnel from the unit. The roster is male-dominated, but women supposedly serving in the 383rd are also named, including a cook and a medic.

The unit is notable for its suspected role in attempted strikes with Soviet-era Tu-141 Strizh drones in the early phase of the Ukraine conflict. Kiev converted several of the large fixed wing reconnaissance aircraft into long-range kamikaze drones. Infamously, one of them crashed in central Zagreb, Croatia in March 2022, although the NATO nation’s leadership declined to directly blame Kiev.

The 383rd was also responsible for an attack on an airfield in Ryazan Region in December 2022, in which three Russian military personnel were killed and seven others injured, according to Russian investigators, as reported by Kommersant last year. Another episode in the same criminal case happened in October 2022 and involved a weaponized UJ-22 Airborne drone that unsuccessfully targeted an airfield in Kaluga Region.

Colonel Sergey Burdenyuk, the Ukrainian regiment’s commander, is currently wanted in Russia after a court issued an arrest warrant against him in absentia. His profile is among those published by the hacker team.