When Russia launched its all-out war against Ukraine in February 2022, many cybersecurity watchers feared ransomware groups would serve as a proxy force. But Moscow doesn’t appear to have deputized cybercrime-driven crypto-locking malware brigades.

So said participants in a panel held Friday by the Institute for Security and Technology on the ransomware implications of the Russian invasion of its European neighbor.

Rather than enlisting criminal ransomware groups into Russia’s cyber military operations against Ukraine, the invasion fractured major ransomware groups.