Russia was involved in a months-long cyber espionage campaign against Germany last year, which involved targeting politicians and the defense sector, German officials said, adding they have evidence the attacks were conducted by Russia-backed threat actor, Fancy Bear.

Also tracked as APT28, Fancy Bear is a state-sponsored hacker group linked to the Russian GRU intelligence service that, according to German officials, targeted German infrastructure in response to German military aid to Ukraine in the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

“Today we can say unambiguously [that] we can attribute this cyber-attack to a group called APT28, which is steered by the military intelligence service of Russia,” Annalena Baerbock, German foreign minister said in a news conference. “In other words, it was a state-sponsored Russian cyber-attack on Germany, and this is absolutely intolerable and unacceptable and will have consequences.”