The Cyber Partisans hacked the Belarus railroad computer systems. They identified spies and tracked Russian military movements in Belarus and the movement of Russian military equipment in Belarus. They even stole President Lukashenka’s passport information.
Belarus’s Cyber Partisans is a hacktivist collective working to topple Belarus’s autocratic leadership. While focusing on bringing change to their own country, the Belarus hackers are giving invaluable aid to Ukraine.
Success is far from guaranteed. The Cyber Partisans have yet to conduct offensive operations that extensively disrupt Russian military operations flowing through Belarus. For now, the group remains a thorn, not a mortal threat, to Lukashenka’s regime.
But the Belarus president seems frightened. Lukashenka says he is “more scared of cyber weapons than nuclear weapons,” telling his ministers that if they cannot “protect information on your computers, then go back to using paper.”
The Cyber Partisans emerged in the wake of the 2020 protests against the Belarus regime. They count only a few dozen members and operate secretly to protect their identities and relatives living in Belarus. Only a few core members have access to their own internal database and the ability to review hacked data. Before anyone can join, the Cyber Partisans conduct a rigorous review to verify their identities. The vetting filters out potential Belarus or Russian intelligence services.
Shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Partisans hacked the Belarusian Railways computer system, demanding that the government stop helping transport Russian troops. They avoided taking more drastic steps to paralyze trains by downing the signaling and emergency control systems, but said they “might do that in the future if we’re confident innocent people won’t get injured.”
Since then, the Cyber Partisans have continued to relay important data to Ukrainian intelligence. They recently hacked into the Russian drone manufacturer “Orlan,” transmitting company data to Ukraine’s intelligence services.
The Belarusian Cyber Partisans and Ukraine’s IT Army efforts overlap. They share a common enemy in Russia. However, the two groups are different in their scope and goals. The Cyber Partisans function as a digital resistance, a hacktivist group, to fight against the Lukashenka regime. Ukraine’s IT Army features thousands of volunteers from different countries who are engaged in an all-out cyber war against Russia.
For now, no active collaboration exists between the Belarusian and Ukrainian hackers. At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the groups tried to talk, but no serious engagement materialized. The Belarusian operation is centralized and political, while the Ukrainians are decentralized.
The two groups’ tactics differ. Ukraine’s IT Army launches large-scale DDoS attacks to disrupt operations and take down networks. In contrast, the Cyber Partisans hack into networks and once inside, maintain a low profile in order to gather information.
In recent months, the Belarus Partisans have conducted only a few high-profile attacks. Yuliana Shemetovets, the Cyber Partisan spokeswoman, says the group is keeping a low profile in preparation “for a revolutionary situation.” A Black Swan event almost happened with last year’s mutiny of the Wagner Group in Russia. “We want to stay inside the system, extract data, and provide data to partners we trust,” said Shemetovets.
When the time is right, she vows that the Cyber Partisans will be ready to unleash havoc.
David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist and an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X @DVKirichenko.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
