The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-01)

A12 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022

war in ukraine

BY GERRIT DE VYNCK,

RACHEL LERMAN

AND CAT ZAKRZEWSKI

A young girl singing “Let it Go”

from Disney’s Frozen movie in a

bomb shelter. A Ukrainian band in

full combat gear offering to live-

stream with pop star Ed Sheeran.

And shots of civilians climbing on

Russian tanks to brazenly wave

the Ukrainian flag.

These videos and others have

dominated social media feeds

around the world since Russia be-

gan its invasion at the end of Feb-

ruary and have helped fuel a glob-

al movement of Western support

for Ukraine.

But how are so many people still

online? Despite being attacked by

a major military power with

vaunted cyber capabilities,

Ukraine’s Internet is still largely

intact, allowing the millions of

people who remain in the country

to communicate, and giving the

world a front-row seat to the dev-

astating war.

Here’s how Ukraine has man-

aged.

What is the current status of

the Internet in Ukraine?

Most of Ukraine is still connect-

ed to the Internet, especially in

major cities. Outages occur every

day, but the overall infrastructure

that powers the Internet has prov-

en resilient, with the help of engi-

neers and backup plans.

“The fact that Internet net-

working and cellular largely

works is remarkable,” said Lukasz

Olejnik, an independent cyberse-

curity researcher and consultant.

Experts tracking outages have

seen an overall decline in Internet

traffic, in part because of damage

from the war. But millions of peo-

ple have fled the country, too, re-

ducing overall traffic.

The places where Russia’s as-

sault is the most intense can be cut

off, however, adding to the confu-

sion and terror for those who re-

main.

That includes the besieged city

of Mariupol. Major Internet pro-

vider Kyivstar posted online this

week that it worked hard to keep

Mariupol connected before at-

tacks took out the service.

Associated Press reporters who

were the only independent out-

side journalists in Mariupol be-

fore leaving on Mar. 15, reported

that they had to rely on satellite

phones once the Internet had

been completely cut off.

Why is so much of Ukraine

still connected?

Cybersecurity experts have for

years predicted that the first shots

of modern wars would be taken in

cyberspace, with an invading na-

tion taking out a target’s ability to

communicate and stoking chaos

by taking down the Internet.

That didn’t happen in Ukraine.

Russia has launched cyberattacks,

including hacking into a satellite

Internet provider’s network at the

beginning of the invasion, and po-

tentially knocking out service at

Ukrtelecom, a telephone and In-

ternet provider, this week. But the

attacks have been smaller and less

destructive than many experts

had expected.

Russia may have anticipated

needing the infrastructure once it

occupied Ukraine. Russian troops

inside Ukraine may also need the

Internet and cell service to com-

municate with each other, said

John Ferrari, a nonresident senior

fellow at the American Enterprise

Institute who researches the de-

fense budget and the military.

This isn’t the first time Ukraine

has had to fend off Russian cyber-

attacks. In 2015, Russia hacked

Ukrainian power providers and

shut off electricity for tens of thou-

sands. Since then, the country has

worked on its cyber defenses.

The physical infrastructure

that makes up the Internet in

Ukraine is well-developed, and of-

ten includes multiple fiber lines

that can cover the same areas, said

Doug Madory, director of Internet

analysis for Kentik, which moni-

tors global data flows.

What happens when the

Internet goes down?

In areas where Internet service

has failed, often as the result of a

strike that damaged fiber cables or

because of a power outage,

Ukraine’s telecommunications

companies are sending workers

into the field to fix what they can.

Ukrainian telecom workers

have been mounting a heroic ef-

fort to keep their fellow citizens

connected, “working around-the-

clock to maintain availability of

these services,” Ukraine’s minister

for digital transformation,

Mykhailo Fedorov told The Post in

an interview.

Kyivstar has been sending out

engineers for repairs and is also

providing Internet service to more

than 200 bomb shelters in the

country.

Is Elon Musk’s Starlink

satellite Internet service

helping?

The government of Ukraine has

also been preparing backup op-

tions for when traditional service

fails. After Fedorov tweeted at

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk

last month, the billionaire ar-

ranged to have equipment for his

satellite Internet service Starlink

sent to Ukraine. The country has

received thousands of Starlink ter-

minals, which communicate with

satellites in orbit to provide serv-

ice.

Satellite service is generally not

as fast or powerful as Internet

connections on the ground, but it

can be a useful backup, and Ukrai-

nian civilians and the military are

already using it.

“The quality of the link is excel-

lent,” Fedorov told The Post earlier

this month. “We are using thou-

sands — in the area of thousands

— of terminals, with new ship-

ments arriving every other day.”

Why is it so important to keep

Ukraine connected?

Ukrainians have relied on the

Internet to stay connected with

the outside world, to communi-

cate with each other and their

government — and to get messag-

es to world leaders. Government

officials have used the connection

to appeal for help from billion-

aires, to speak with Congress and

European governments, and to

collect information on Russian

troop movements.

A government app initially de-

veloped to help Ukrainians access

public services and organize coro-

navirus tests has been repurposed

to allow people to report the posi-

tion of Russian tanks and soldiers

so Ukrainian forces can find and

destroy them. Messaging apps

have been used by regular people

to coordinate the defense of their

hometowns.

Ukrainian President Volod-

ymyr Zelensky has uploaded a

steady stream of videos to his so-

cial media accounts, inspiring

Ukrainians to fight back. Social

media feeds everywhere are filled

with stories of Ukrainian bravery,

pushing people to demand their

governments send military aid to

Ukraine and enact stricter sanc-

tions on Russia.

Journalists and regular people

have been able to use the Internet,

too, to get facts out about Russian

bombardments, showing the dev-

astation wrought on civilian pop-

ulation centers. Images from the

AP journalists of injured pregnant

mothers being evacuated from a

maternity hospital in Mariupol af-

ter it was struck by Russia even

prompted Russian propaganda

outlets to try to discredit the

mothers by claiming they were

actors.

“This is a conflict that’s playing

out for millions of people on social

media,” Madory said. “That

wouldn’t happen without an In-

ternet connection.”

Joseph Menn contributed to this

report.

Despite attacks, Kyiv

keeps Internet running

BY EMILY RAUHALA,

LILY KUO,

ELLEN NAKASHIMA

AND CATE CADELL

brussels — Russia’s attack on
Ukraine has forced the European
Union to rethink how it works
with authoritarian regimes. Out-
raged by the war, the bloc feels
deceived by Moscow’s double-
speak and deeply remorseful that
it did not break ties sooner.
The bloc’s skepticism is expect-
ed to carry over into an E.U.-
China summit on Friday — the
first in nearly two years — as the
E.U. recalibrates its relationship
with one of its top trade partners.
Before the war, the E.U. was
slowly and somewhat reluctantly
adopting a tougher stance toward
China. The events of the past
month — and Beijing’s tacit back-
ing of Moscow — have accelerated
that shift, aligning the E.U. more
closely with the U.S. position on
China as a strategic adversary.
E.U. leaders plan to use the vir-
tual summit to warn Chinese Pres-
ident Xi Jinping and Prime Minis-
ter Li Keqiang against offering
material support to Russia,
whether in the form of arms or
assistance in evading sanctions.
“Everyone will be watching to
see how hard the Europeans press
China,” said David Shullman, sen-
ior director of the Atlantic Coun-
cil’s Global China Hub.
Chinese officials, meanwhile,
have been surprised and dismayed
to see the E.U. align so closely with
the United States, especially on
Russia sanctions, said a person
familiar with official discussions
in Beijing on the China-E.U. rela-
tionship.
“The Ukraine situation has def-
initely pushed E.U. thinking closer
to that of the U.S. ... That will have
negative outcomes for all parties,”
said the person, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak
to reporters.
Ahead of the E.U.-China sum-

mit, Chinese analysts and official

media outlets appear to be trying

to peel Europe away from the

United States — prodding the E.U.

to exert its independence. State

broadcaster CCTV wrote in an edi-

torial Tuesday that Europe,

“which has been repeatedly

stabbed in the back by the United

States,” should not make the same

mistakes and be “dragged into

danger by the U.S.”

Chinese leaders are seeking to

preserve access to the E.U.’s trad-

ing market while being cautious

not to cross Russia, their greatest

strategic partner, Shullman said.

“They’re going out of their way

to try to convince friendlier Euro-

pean leaders that China is trying

to play a positive role, without

actually shifting their true posi-

tion on Russia in any meaningful

fashion,” he said.

China has tried to play both

sides of Russia’s war in Ukraine —

a strategy that looks increasingly

untenable.

In the run-up to the invasion, Xi

and Russian President Vladimir

Putin palled around on the side-

lines of the Beijing Olympics, pub-

lishing a joint statement steeped

in shared grievances with and an-

ger at the United States.

As it became clearer that Putin’s

“limited military operation” was a

full-scale war playing out in public

view, Beijing tried in some ways to

distance itself from Moscow. Chi-

nese officials have expressed dis-

may over the human cost of the

war and touted humanitarian aid

to Ukraine. In a video call this

month, Xi told President Biden

that the war in Ukraine is “not

something we want to see.”

But Beijing has not signaled

willingness to fundamentally

change its position or use its “no

limits” strategic partnership with

Moscow to pressure Putin into

ending the fighting. In the call

with Biden, Xi implied that the

United States caused the conflict

by failing to address Russia’s secu-

rity concerns, telling the presi-

dent, “He who tied the bell to the

tiger must take it off.”

At the summit with the E.U., Chi-

nese leaders will maintain a similar

line and raise concerns about

NATO expansion in Europe, ac-

cording to one Chinese official fa-

miliar with plans for the meeting.

“The Chinese side is resolute and

clear and will resist pressure to take

sides in the Ukraine conflict,” said

the official, who also spoke on the

condition of anonymity because of

the sensitivity of the subject.

Some E.U. leaders, unlike U.S.

officials, appear to hold out hope

China could help pursue peace.

This month, Josep Borrell, the

E.U.’s top diplomat, suggested that

Beijing is uniquely placed to medi-

ate for Russia and Ukraine — an

idea dismissed by U.S. intelligence

and other officials.

In a video call with Borrell on

Tuesday, Foreign Minister Wang

Yi said China was “deeply grieved”

over the fighting in Ukraine and

would work with the international

community to call for a cease-fire.

On Wednesday, hosting Rus-

sian Foreign Minister Sergei Lav-

rov for the first time since the

invasion, Wang said relations be-

tween China and Russia had with-

stood “the test of changes in the

international situation” and that

Beijing is eager to take China-

Russia relations to “an even high-

er level.”

China’s parroting of Russian

disinformation about U.S.-backed

labs for the study of diseases in

Ukraine has been particularly

harmful to Beijing’s reputation,

said some U.S. officials, who spoke

on the condition of anonymity be-

cause of the matter’s sensitivity.

“Beijing hopes to come out of

this with Europe seeing China as a

wholly neutral party to the war in

Ukraine, and with the old, com-

fortable status quo restored: with

Europe divided and deeply hesi-

tant to compromise trade and in-

vestment with China in the name

of geopolitical security,” said Kev-

in Rudd, a former Australian

prime minister and now president

of the Asia Society. “This is an

unlikely outcome at this point.”

Indeed, China’s stance seems to

be quickening the shift to a tough-

er European approach to Beijing.

Just over a year ago, the E.U. —

led by Germany — was pushing to

close an investment agreement

with Beijing. The deal was put on

hold following moves to sanction

China over human rights abuses

in Xinjiang and China’s subse-

quent sanctions on European dip-

lomats and lawmakers.

China’s recent attempt to eco-

nomically punish Lithuania for

drawing closer to Taiwan angered

many in Europe, injecting new

momentum into calls for an anti-

coercion instrument to protect

E.U. member states from eco-

nomic intimidation. In the wake

of the Russian invasion of

Ukraine, E.U. countries will be

even less likely to ignore China’s

bullying of a small country, E.U.

diplomats and analysts said.

Janka Oertel, director of the

Asia program at the European

Council on Foreign Relations, said

there is a sense in Europe that “it is

Russia today but it could be China

tomorrow, so we have to guard

ourselves for this new reality that

is emerging.”

Helena Legarda, lead analyst at

the Mercator Institute for China

Studies, said Chinese officials

have signaled over the past few

months a desire to bring E.U.-

China relations back on track, but

those efforts have been undercut

by Beijing’s position on an issue of

such existential weight to Euro-

pean countries.

“The ultimate goal of China is

for the E.U. and the U.S. to go

separate ways. What Russia has

done, and China by not taking a

stance, is achieving the opposite,”

she said. “It’s brought the E.U. and

the U.S. closer together.”

Kuo reported from Taipei, Taiwan, and

Nakashima and Cadell from

Washington.

Putin puts China in new light for E.U.

SARAHBETH MANEY/NEW YORK TIMES/POOL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Members of Congress give Ukrainian President Volodymyr

Zelensky a standing ovation before his virtual address March 16.

BY REED ALBERGOTTI

Russian oligarchs and other
powerful individuals are turning
to an unusual method to protect
their online images: data privacy
laws.
Those laws, which were intend-
ed to prevent ads from tracking
consumers too closely around the
Internet, are now being used in
the United Kingdom to sue any-
one holding undesirable informa-
tion on their devices. That could
include a journalist’s notes from
an interview typed into a comput-
er or a private investigator’s com-
promising photos stored on a
phone.
British law is already notori-
ously friendly to plaintiffs who
want to stop the publication of an
unflattering article or other infor-
mation they allege is untrue un-
der libel law. When suing using
the U.K.’s data privacy law, which
was modeled after the European
Union’s General Data Protection
Regulation following Brexit and
targeted at companies like
Google, the legal reasoning is that
the journalist or other target is a
“data collector.”
The data privacy law covers a
wide swath of real and truthful
data that could be held on any
device, not just things that could
be libelous. Already, several high-
profile cases have successfully
tested the law’s potency against
politicians and journalists, and
parliamentarians have held hear-
ings on the issue.
“The way the law is being used
by oligarchs to silence journalists
is expressly not what Parliament’s
intention was,” said Liam Byrne, a
member of Parliament. “It’s all
part of trying to murder the
truth.”
The issue has resurfaced
among U.K. lawmakers following
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and
related sanctions. In a March 15
evidentiary hearing in front of the
Foreign Affairs Committee, called
in the wake of the invasion, wit-
nesses and members of Parlia-
ment discussed the novel use of
privacy laws by oligarchs.
Members of Parliament ac-
cused Russian oligarchs in partic-
ular of using the legal system to
avoid legitimate scrutiny, in a Jan.
20 debate focused on the topic.
The use of the data privacy law
was successful in a case brought
by Russians against Orbis Busi-
ness Intelligence that was decid-
ed in 2020. Orbis is owned by
Christopher Steele, the former
British intelligence officer who
assembled a dossier containing a
collection of largely unverified
reports that claimed the Russian
government had compromising

information about then-pre-

sidential candidate Donald

Trump.

The unfinished “raw” intelli-

gence report, which accused Rus-

sian oligarchs of having close ties

with Putin, was partially leaked to

journalists, spurring articles

around the globe dissecting its

allegations. It was also used by

the FBI as a basis for surveillance

of people connected to the Trump

campaign. While some aspects of

the dossier have been corroborat-

ed, much of it has not been backed

up by independent sources.

The lawsuit alleged that in the

process of assembling the dossier,

Orbis stored inaccurate informa-

tion on its computers and thus

acted as a “data collector.” Under

the data protection laws, Orbis

was required to take measures to

ensure the accuracy of the data,

even if it never planned to publish

it.

The court found Orbis liable in

two of the 15 total allegations for

mishandling data, even though

the company never published the

information, and awarded a judg-

ment in favor of the plaintiffs.

“In a libel suit, you either win

or you lose,” Steele said in an

interview. “In this case, you’re in

no man’s land legally. ... It’s be-

come a proxy for libel law and a

way to chill investigations.”

In another case, a British Par-

liament member compiled re-

search on a donor, and he success-

fully forced her to turn over all the

information she had compiled on

him as a result of the court case.

The costly legal battle has helped

deter further scrutiny.

It’s also being used in an at-

tempt to stifle a journalist in the

United States.

Scott Stedman is the 26-year-

old founder of Forensic News, a

website he launched from his

parents’ house in Orange County,

Calif. He was returning from

lunch in the summer of 2020

when a man followed him up the

driveway and served him with a

lawsuit filed in the United King-

dom. The case is headed toward

trial.

Walter Soriano, a British secu-

rity consultant whose firm pro-

vided airport security during the

Sochi Olympics, alleged Sted-

man’s reporting on him — which

he claims is inaccurate —

amounted to illegal data collec-

tion.

Stedman and three colleagues

had published articles for a year

that scrutinized Soriano’s alleged

ties to Russian oligarchs.

“I didn’t know I had to answer

to U.K. laws,” Stedman said in an

interview. “I’ve never been out of

the country.”

Anne Champion, a lawyer at

Gibson Dunn who represents

Stedman, said she will argue that

any judgments against her client

on data privacy grounds should

be unenforceable in the United

States, where laws prevent the

enforcement of some foreign

judgments that contradict Ameri-

can free speech laws. “I think it’s

extremely important. People are

always looking for ways around

defamation protections,” she

said.

The case has yet to go to trial.

But Soriano’s attorneys have al-

ready begun their effort to get U.S.

courts to enforce the judgment.

Andrew Brettler, a partner at

Lavely & Singer, said he will argue

in U.S. courts that the costs and

any future judgment are not pro-

tected by free speech laws domes-

tically. And Shlomo Re-

chtschaffen, who represents Sori-

ano in the United Kingdom, said

the suit is a good-faith effort to

clear Soriano’s name.

Stedman refuses to back down.

He said Forensic News earns

about $50,000 a year in subscrip-

tions, which are paid by readers

voluntarily to support the site. He

has taken out loans to help pay

U.K. counsel. He also has started a

crowdfunding campaign to help

defray costs and has delayed mov-

ing out of his parents’ house.

Stedman is scheduled to testify

about his case in front of the U.S.

Commission on Security and Co-

operation in Europe, also known

as the Helsinki Commission, next

week in a hearing on “Countering

Oligarchs, Enablers, and Law-

fare.”

He could have ignored the law-

suit altogether, hoping a judg-

ment would be unenforceable in

the United States.

“I’d be lying if I told you we

didn’t consider all of our options,”

Stedman said.

“I’m not going to compromise

my values,' he added. “He miscal-

culated in thinking we’d just fold.”

Russian oligarchs using U.K. privacy laws to sue

LUKE MACGREGOR/BLOOMBERG NEWS

A British flag in view of the Houses of Parliament in London. Some powerful Russians a re using

the measures to sue people with undesirable information, such as a journalist’s notes, on their devices.