Hackers from the group CyberBerkut have published classified documents confirming that the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine has asked the country’s President Petro Poroshenko to authorize measures aimed at breaking up the Dutch referendum on Ukraine, media reports said.
In a letter to Poroshenko, Viktor Hvozd, in particular, underscores the necessity of “implementing a set of measures aimed at the disruption the referendum“.
The goal is “to contribute to changing the social position of citizens of the Netherlands, in a bid to promote the national interests of Ukraine,” the letter said.
According to Hvozd, “the measures include bribing regional officials, clinching an agreement with a group of local journalists on creating a negative news background concerning the referendum, as well as putting pressure, including physical pressure, on the referendum’s organizers.”
Hvozd also said that “in order to cover up our activities, we plan to act on behalf of the Arab migrants and under the slogan of observing the principles of European tolerance.”
He concluded by asking Poroshenko to authorize the measures and order the allocation of relevant funds for the purpose.
At the beginning of the letter, Hvozd mentioned Russian special services’ alleged efforts to tarnish Ukraine’s international image and “actively contact the representatives of the different European social movements, the joint activity of which may damage Ukraine’s national interests.”
These include representatives of the Dutch analysis center Forum voor Democratie (Forum for Democracy), which earlier collected the required amount of signatures on a petition to initiate a national referendum in the Netherlands.
The event is scheduled for April 6, 2016. Citizens will be asked whether they are in favor of an agreement on Ukraine’s association with the European Union or against it.