The theft of personal data of participants in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) following the hacking of a computer of the State Service for War Veterans and ATO Participants is seen as an attempt by intruders to worsen Ukrainian-Polish relations, since information about the hacking was originally spread from Polish hackers, Ukrainian National Police spokesperson Yaroslav Trakalo has said.

"We see this as another attempt to worsen our relations with Poland, because the information was originally placed in the account allegedly from Polish hackers who acted under the guise of a group of hackers BellingCat, but Polish hackers and the BellingCat group immediately denied their involvement in hacking," he said live on the 112 Ukraine television channel on Saturday, November 18.

Earlier, the cyber police department of the National Police of Ukraine said that following the hacking of a computer of an employee of the regional branch of the State Service for War Veterans and ATO Participants, hackers got access to the archives and personal data of the ATO soldiers. At the same time, the department denied reports about the hacking of the Interior Ministry servers.

After the hacking, cybercriminals proposed downloading the archives containing personal data of ATO fighters on the Internet.

Activists of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, in turn, said that the information about the hacking was first spread by a Russian account on Twitter.

"A sleeping account 'Anonymous Poland' (actually Russia) woke up on Twitter the other day and posted a selection of personal data of ATO participants, volunteers, telephone directories of officials of Chernihiv region," the organization's press secretary, Sean Townsend, said.