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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Chris Stokel-Walker and Dan Milmo

‘It’s the right thing to do’: the 300,000 volunteer hackers coming together to fight Russia

Illustration of a computer for a feature on hacking
‘We’ve been in a hybrid war and a direct war with Russia since 2014.’ Illustration: Sergiy Maidukov/The Guardian

Kali learned how to use technology by playing with his grandfather’s phone. Now, the Swiss teenager is trying to paralyse the digital presence of the Russian government and the Belarussian railway.

Kali – and many others who contributed to this article – declined to share his real name because some of the action he is taking is illegal and because he fears Russian retaliation. He is one of about 300,000 people who have signed up to a group on the chat app Telegram called “IT Army of Ukraine”, through which participants are assigned tasks designed to take the fight to Vladimir Putin. In so doing, they are trying to level the playing field between one of the world’s superpowers and Ukraine as it faces bombardment and invasion.

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