In a bold cyber strike, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency says it has successfully hacked into one of Russia’s top warplane manufacturers — Tupolev — exposing sensitive data about the country’s supersonic strategic bombers.
The cyber operation was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, targeting the Tupolev division of the United Aircraft Company — a Russian state-owned aerospace giant known for building long-range bombers like the TU-160M “White Swan.”
According to Ukrainian news outlets, an anonymous source within the GUR stated that the military intelligence hackers gained access to more than 4.4 gigabytes (GB) of internal data from the Tupolev division of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), a major player in Russia’s defense industry and successor to the Soviet-era aircraft design bureau.
The stolen data reportedly includes staff personal details, home addresses, resumes of engineers and designers, purchase records, internal company emails (including messages exchanged by the company’s management), and transcripts from high-level meetings.
“There’s practically nothing left hidden inside Tupolev now,” the source said. “We know who’s involved in keeping Russia’s strategic bombers operational — and that information will have serious consequences on the ground and in the air.”
The source also revealed that HUR’s cyber unit had been silently monitoring the company’s internal operations in real time for some time, allowing them to map out internal workflows and collect intelligence for possible future operations targeting Russia’s military-industrial network.
Out in the Open
“The value of the data obtained is hard to overstate. There is now virtually nothing secret left in Tupolev’s operations as far as Ukrainian intelligence is concerned,” the anonymous source told Kyiv Post.
“We now have comprehensive information on individuals directly involved in maintaining Russia’s strategic aviation. The effects of this operation will be felt both on the ground and in the skies.”
To top off the operation, Ukrainian hackers defaced Tupolev’s official website, replacing its homepage with an image of an owl gripping a Russian bomber in its talons — a symbolic parting message to Moscow.
Currently, the Tupolev website redirects to the main portal of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) — a state-owned conglomerate formed in 2006 to unify major Russian aircraft manufacturers, including Tupolev, Mikoyan, Ilyushin, Irkut, Sukhoi, and Yakovlev under one umbrella.
Tupolev, known for producing long-range bombers, such as Tu-95, Tu-22M3, and Tu-160 aircraft, has been under U.S. and Western sanctions since 2022 for its role in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
This recent hack is part of Ukraine’s ongoing digital offensive, which has increasingly focused on sabotaging Russia’s defense infrastructure from the inside. In recent months, GUR has reportedly hit several other targets linked to Russia’s weapons manufacturing, military logistics, and air force systems.
