The US has imposed sanctions on Russian Sergei Zelenyuk and his company Operation Zero, accusing them of stealing and selling classified cyber tools created for the US government and its allies.
This was reported by the US Treasury Department.
According to US authorities, since 2021, Zelenyuk has acted as an "exploit broker" — an intermediary who buys up vulnerabilities in popular software, including operating systems and encrypted messengers made in the US, and then resells them.
According to the Treasury Department, Operation Zero acquired at least eight government tools designed exclusively for the US government and select allies. They were stolen from a US company, and at least one of the tools was then sold to an unauthorized user.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the company also attempted to cooperate with foreign intelligence services and develop spyware, in particular to collect usersʼ personal data and extract information from artificial intelligence-based systems.
In addition to Zelenyuk, sanctions were imposed on his assistant Maryna Vasanovich, the UAE-based company Special Technology Services, as well as Azizzhon Mamashoyev and Oleg Kucherov. Sanctions were also imposed on the company Advance Security Solutions, which Mamashoyev created.
- In August 2025, it became known that Russian government hackers had had access to the US court records system for many years and had stolen confidential documents that judges had ordered to be classified.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.