Signal
Submitted
Jul 14, 2026, 20:11 UTC
EU and Britain expose Russia's FSB 16th Center for decade-long cyber sabotage including a foiled 2026 plot to blackout 500,000 Polish residents.
The European Union and Britain have publicly attributed a decade-long cyber-espionage and sabotage campaign targeting European critical infrastructure to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) 16th Center. The campaign included attempts to disrupt power grids and defense networks across multiple countries including France, Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. A foiled 2026 winter cyberattack aimed to cut power to around 500,000 people in Poland. The 16th Center controls notorious hacking collectives like Turla, and operates in close coordination with criminal hacking syndicates and pro-Kremlin groups. British and EU sanctions have targeted individuals and entities tied to these operations, highlighting Russia’s hybrid warfare strategy blending state intelligence and cybercriminal networks.
Confidence: High
The article details a coordinated and state-sponsored cyber-espionage and sabotage campaign by a Russian FSB unit targeting critical infrastructure in Europe, including an attempted large-scale power blackout. This is clearly aggressive hostile activity meeting the definition of a hybrid warfare signal.
Source URL
https://occrp.org/en/news/spies-malware-and-blackouts-eu-blames-secret-fsb-unit-for-decade-of-cyber-sabotage
Source reliability
F
Info credibility
6
Event time
Jul 13, 2026, 00:00 UTC
Event time confidence
unknown
Location
Poland
Primary actor
Federal Security Service (FSB) 16th Center
Country
Poland
Countries
Poland
Tags
FSB, offensive cyber operations, Cyber sabotage, Critical infrastructure attack, Power grid attack, Turla, Russian hacking, Hybrid warfare, Sanctions, Malware, GRU, NATO