January 13, 2026: Ukrainian partisans have added hacking to their toolbox. Last month the Atesh group carried out a hack that disabled reestrpovestok.RF, the Russian electronic military draft network. This network sends out draft notices to men in Russia plus Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine. It took weeks to get the system fully functional again. Atesh also carries out attacks on Russian railroads, usually by disabling engines or switching systems. These attacks take place deep inside Russia, where security is thin to non-existent.

Three years ago, Ukraine began organizing partisan groups within Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine as well as in Russia itself. Many Russian civilians were unhappy with this war, which was getting lots of Russian soldiers killed and causing economic problems inside Russia. This led to the formation of several armed groups of pro-Ukraine Russians as well as making it easier for Russian-speaking Ukrainian operatives to operate inside Russia collecting information and organizing sabotage missions. Most of the sabotage was made to appear as an accident or lack of maintenance, both of which are common inside peacetime as well as wartime Russia.

Since the Americans would not supply Ukraine with satellite photos of possible targets inside Russia, Ukraine used its agents to locate or confirm the location and condition of potential targets. This is what made the drone attacks possible on eighteen Russian fuel refining and storage locations in one year. This caused fuel shortages and higher fuel prices inside Russia. Attacks were also on manufacturers of key components for military equipment as well as warehouses containing military equipment, including explosive items. Those nighttime attacks, even more than the ones on fuel depots, produced dramatic explosions and fires that could be seen for many kilometers. So many of these occurred that the state controlled mass media could not effectively conceal what was happening and that it was the Ukrainians who were doing it.

Ukraine deliberately carried out these attacks near major cities like Moscow, St Petersburg, and more distant cities like Kazan, which is 730 kilometers east of Moscow. Nearly half the population of Kazan are native Tatars who would rather live in a Tartar nation than one dominated by Russians. There are many other ethnic minorities in Russia and Ukraine can find locals willing to aid the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia.

The Ukrainians had already organized and in some cases armed thousands of Ukrainian civilians living in Russian controlled areas. These partisans devote most of their efforts to obtaining detailed information on what local Russian forces are doing and what shape these Russian troops are in. It can take days to get status reports to Ukrainian forces about Russian military activities. These reports often result in Ukrainian drone attacks on key Russian targets.

Russia has had less success maintaining agents inside Ukraine. At the start of the war, it was revealed that Russia had lots of agents, some of them in the Ukrainian government and military. During the first year of the war most of these Russian agents were revealed, often as they sought to carry out acts of sabotage. By the second year of the war Russia had few agents left inside Ukraine while Ukraine had a growing number of agents inside Russia. This was because few Russians could see any justification for Russia invading Ukraine. The war in Ukraine has become increasingly unpopular inside Russia and more Russians are acting against their own government. Ukraine appears to have little contact with these anti-government Russians other than not interfering with them if they base themselves on the Ukrainian side of the border in between attacks inside Russia.

In response to these partisan attacks, the Russian army has deployed over 30,000 soldiers in border areas where the partisans, both Russian and Ukrainian, were operating. The partisans are numerous, with up to 100,000 Russian members of these pro-Ukrainian groups who support and carry out operations inside Russia.

As the war in Ukraine gets more Russian soldiers killed and does more damage to the Russian economy, the Russian partisans inside Russia become more active and troublesome.