Pentagon names Russian phishing sites gathering information on Ukraine's soldiers

In an explosive finding, the Pentagon has identified several Russian phishing sites that have been leading efforts to gather personal data linked to Ukrainian military personnel and their families. Russia has upped its information warfare amid the ongoing war with neighbouring Ukraine. At least two phishing sites, WarTears.org and ForeignCombatants.ru, were detected on the internet that were involved in faking identity and posing as the 'support website' for the relatives, friends and family of missing, captured or killed Ukrainian soldiers or the POWs during the conflict. 

At least two Pentagon officials, who requested anonymity, told the VOA outlet that Russia has been using two websites to collect the personal details and other critical information linked to the Ukrainian soldiers. Russians are using the names, phone numbers and addresses of Ukrainian soldiers to establish whether their families or relatives reside in the occupied Russian territories in Ukraine. This information is comprised using deceit so that the Russian soldiers can later detain the Ukrainian soldiers' families and loved ones from the occupied territories of Ukraine and deport them to Russia. 

Information of more than 170,000 Ukrainian soldiers collected

The Pentagon found that the database of the website WarTears.org has collected the personal information of more than 170,000 Ukrainian soldiers. The development came as the US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned previously that Washington learned from various sources that Moscow is forcibly deporting Ukrainians to Russia and that it has interrogated an estimated 1.6 million Ukrainians, and of these, as many as 900,000 were deported. "It's very disturbing," the retired US Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton was quoted as saying. "It shows Russia's thorough approach to data collection and its willingness to exploit these vulnerabilities," he added. 

An official at the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Petro Yatsenko, revealed that the websites that were posing to 'support' the Ukrainian soldiers were fake. At this point, there are dozens of phishing sites that are handled by the Russians, trying to collect data about family members of the Ukrainian soldiers, Yatsenko stressed. "They are playing on the feelings of extremely vulnerable relatives and friends of servicemen who went missing or were captured, using the fact that Russia does not provide Ukraine with information about the people they hold captive," the representative was quoted as saying. "The relatives hope that their loved ones are not dead but in captivity, and therefore provide their personal data," he added.