May 7, 2025: Since 2022 Russia has already been hit with sanctions on Russian IT or Information Technology companies. This effort has had little impact because the Russian computer manufacturers continue to obtain western components smuggled in via third countries. Russian software developers still create software for Russian laptops and desktop computers and install western quality software. One difference is the GPS tracking feature of most PCs, tablets and laptops. This enables foreign intelligence agencies to note that many Russian computers are still operating despite the sanctions that were meant to cripple them. When needed, Russian users can easily disable the GPS feature in their computers.

At the same time Russia is still engaging in Cyber War. These include disrupting GPS navigation in the Baltic Sea. This attack was aimed at one of the Baltic states, Estonia, because a World War II T-34 tank serving as a Soviet Communist war memorial in Estonia was removed. Estonia declared neutrality when World War II broke out in 1939, and spent most of the war occupied by neutral German troops. The Russians drove the Germans out in late 1944 and brutally occupied Estonia until 1991.

That was why the T-34 memorial was removed. The Russians responded by jamming Estonian GPS. There was even worse retribution against the tiny Caucasus nation of Georgia. Russian Cyber Warriors gained access to and sometimes disrupted operations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finance, the National Bank of Georgia, energy and telecommunications companies, oil terminals, and television networks. Russia could have also terminated nationwide power plant operations.

The situation is not completely normal for the Russian IT industry. Over ten percent of their IT specialists have left the country because the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Russian IT companies and banned Russian IT specialists from working for American clients. Some of the IT specialists may have left to avoid being mobilized into the army and sent to Ukraine.

The current Cyber War is not the first between Estonia and Russia. Back in 2007 NATO was called on by Estonia to declare Cyber War on Russia. This was because recent Russian Cyber War attacks on Estonia caused enormous financial losses. Estonia wants this sort of thing declared terrorism, and dealt with. NATO agreed to discuss the issue and make a decision. That's big progress in this area.

Cyber Wars have been going on since the 1990s and are getting worse. It started in the 1990s, as individuals attacked the web sites in other nations because of diplomatic disputes. This was usually stirred up by some international incident. India and Pakistan went at it several times, and Arabs and Israelis have been trashing each other’s web sites for years. The Arabs soon backed down because the Israeli hackers were much more effective. Chinese and Taiwanese hackers went at each other periodically, and in 2001, Chinese and American hackers clashed because of a collision off the Chinese coast between an American reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter.

After that these Cyber Wars have escalated from website defacing and shutting down sites with massive DDOS attacks. There were also elaborate espionage efforts against American military networks. The attackers were believed to be Chinese, and some American military commanders were calling for counter attacks to deal with the matter.

The Russian attacks against Estonia were the result of Estonia moving a statue, honoring Russian World War II soldiers, from the center of the capital, to a military cemetery. The Estonians always saw the statue as a reminder of half a century of Russian occupation and oppression. Russia saw the statue move as an insult to the efforts of Russian soldiers to liberate Estonia, and enable the Russians to occupy the place for half a century. The basic problem here is that most Russians don't see their Soviet era ancestors as evil people, despite the millions of Russians and non-Russians killed by the Soviet secret police. The Russians are very proud of their defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, ignoring the fact that in 1939 the Soviet government was just biding its time before it launched its own invasion of Germany and Europe in general.

While many Russians would have backed a military attack on Estonia, to retaliate for the insult by an ungrateful neighbor, this approach was seen as imprudent. Estonia is now part of NATO, and an attack on one NATO member is considered an attack on all. It's because of this Russian threat that Estonia was so eager to get into NATO. The Russians, however, believe that massive Cyber War attacks will not trigger a NATO response. They were so sure of this that some of the early DDOS attacks were easily traced back to computers owned by the Russian government. When that got out, the attacks stopped for a few days, and then resumed from what appeared to be illegal botnets, and maybe some legal botnets as well. Russian language message boards were full of useful information on how to join the holy war against evil Estonia. There's no indication that anyone is afraid of a visit from the Russian cyber-police for any damage they might do to Estonia. And the damage has been significant, amounting to millions of dollars. While no one was injured, Estonia is insisting that this attack, by Russia, should trigger the mutual defense provisions of the NATO treaty. That did not happen but the results of this incident were interesting.