EU Names FSB Centre 16 for a Decade of Cyber Sabotage and Joins the UK in a First Coordinated Sanctions Package
Brussels, 13 July 2026
Key points
- Through a statement by High Representative Kaja Kallas, the EU publicly attributed years of network intrusions and infrastructure sabotage to Centre 16 of Russia's FSB — the directorate that runs the TURLA threat group
- The EU sanctioned nine individuals and four entities; the UK designated twenty-four names the same day, the first joint EU-UK cyber-sanctions package
- Named targeting spans French government since 2010 and its defence industry in 2025, German state bodies, and Polish critical infrastructure, with operations also against Cyprus, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Finland
- The UK and EU jointly attributed a failed December 2025 attack on Poland's power grid — one that could have cut electricity to 500,000 people in deep winter — to FSB Centre 16
The EU and United Kingdom on 13 July 2026 imposed coordinated cyber sanctions on Russia and publicly attributed a decade of intrusions and infrastructure sabotage to Centre 16 of the FSB — their first joint cyber-sanctions package.
In a statement issued for the bloc, Kaja Kallas identified Centre 16 of the FSB as the operator of multiple threat groups, among them TURLA, and held it responsible for years of government-network intrusions and critical-infrastructure sabotage across member states and Ukraine. The EU listed nine individuals and four entities — GRU officers, criminal contractors, self-styled hacktivists and private firms. The attributed targeting reaches back to French government systems since 2010 and its defence industry in 2025, German state bodies and Polish critical infrastructure, and extends to Cyprus, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Finland.
London designated twenty-four names on the same day and went further on Poland, where the UK and EU jointly attributed a December 2025 attack on the power grid to Centre 16 — an operation that failed but which the Foreign Office said could have cut power to 500,000 people in deep winter. The UK named GRU senior officers Vyacheslav Stafeyev, Ivan Senin and Ivan Kasyanenko, and the firm OOO IMPULS, through which Unit 29155's cyber division recruited university hackers. Germany summoned the Russian ambassador and France said it would follow; Poland's foreign-intelligence chief, Colonel Paweł Szota, said Russia keeps "pushing red lines" because the cost to it is low.
The proprietary read. Attribution deters by removing deniability, not revenue. Europe named an FSB directorate, sanctioned thirteen actors and coordinated a London package overnight — the fast, cheap instruments. The slow one stayed stuck: the bloc's 21st sanctions package, likely to carry some 250 new listings, remained blocked on a maritime-services ban and tighter Russian LNG curbs, and the EU is still buying what it has voted to ban, importing a record 9.89 million tonnes of Russian Yamal LNG in the first half of 2026 with the ban not effective until 1 January 2027. As Großwald Signal No. 102 read it, naming the sabotage is what Europe can do this week; ending the money that funds it is what it cannot.
