Hackers Release More E-Mails They Say Tie Putin Aide To Ukraine Crisis

Read the expanded report by RFE/RL's Christopher Miller in Kyiv here.

Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:

​Hackers Release More E-Mails They Say Tie Putin Aide To Ukraine Crisis

By RFE/RL

KYIV -- Ukrainian hackers claim to have broken into a second e-mail account linked to Vladislav Surkov, a senior aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, releasing documents they say add to mounting evidence of Kremlin meddling in Kyiv’s affairs.

The new e-mails were obtained by RFE/RL from the hackers and reviewed in advance of their public release on November 3.

If authentic, they provide detail about the extent to which Surkov’s office worked to set up separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

The e-mails include plans that ostensibly show how associates of Surkov plotted to destabilize Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, researched Ukrainian politicians in a bid to exploit the country’s political divisions, and helped establish the leadership of separatist groups in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions further south.

The new release comes one week after a first batch of e-mails from an inbox allegedly associated with Surkov, which analysts say point to careful planning by Russia ahead of the forcible annexation of Crimea and a direct Russian role in fomenting anti-Kyiv actions in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014.