Cyberkonflikten i Ukraina : Cyberattacker som instrument i tvingande diplomati

Sammanfattning: This paper aims to describe and explain the Russian use of cyberattacks in the Ukrainian conflict. Two major cyber events, BlackEnergy in 2015 and NotPetya in 2017, are analysed by the theoretical framework of coercive diplomacy developed by Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, as well as the theory of cyber coercion made by Daniel R. Flemming and Neil C. Rowe. This paper concludes that the Russian use of cyberattacks could be understood as an extension of their already widespread practice of coercive diplomacy as a foreign policy tool. The cyberattacks were developed to pressure the Ukrainian energy and economic sector, through destabilisation of the economic powerbase and the country as a whole. The cyber offenses are developed to push the Ukrainian politics from western influence back towards the Russian political orbit. This due to the political, economic, and power interests Russia finds in the post-soviet state of Ukraine.