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Russian military hackers are targeting the Ukrainian gas company at the centre of impeachment proceedings against President Trump, according to claims by an American cyber security firm.
Trump is accused of asking the Ukrainian president to investigate Burisma Holdings
in order to help his re-election
bid because the son of his political opponent, Joe Biden, sat on its board.
Now a phishing campaign designed to allow Kremlin-backed hackers to access the gas firm's computer networks is being carried out by the same group which targeted the Democratic National Committee in 2016 to damage Hillary Clinton's electoral efforts, according to Area 1 Security.
Everything you need to know about impeachment in two minutes
The cyber activities are the first which appear to suggest the Russian government could try to interfere in the US presidential election in the same manner as it is accused of in 2016, however there has not been a statement from US authorities alleging interference.
Area 1's claims are speculative and based on the registration of domain names which align with public information about how the hacking group establishes its attack infrastructure.
"The attacks were successful," claimed Oren Falkowitz, Area 1's chief executive and a former US National Security Agency staffer, while speaking to the The New York Times which first reported on his company's findings.
"The timing of the Russian campaign mirrors the GRU hacks we saw in 2016 against the DNC and [Clinton campaign chairman] John Podesta," Mr Falkowitz added.
"Once again, they are stealing email credentials, in what we can only assume is a repeat of Russian interference in the last election."
Burisma Holdings itself has not commented on the claims.
Image:Hunter Biden (L), Joe Biden's son, served on the board of UKrainian gas producer Burisma
A declassified intelligence assessment in as well as a special counsel investigation
found no evidence
that Donald Trump's campaign "conspired or co-ordinated" with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, but confirmed that such interference took place.
A secret whistleblower complaint which prompted the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump alleges the president
abused the power of his office
to "solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 US election.
Trump impeachment: What you need to know about proceedings against the US president
The White House then tried to "lock down" the information to cover it up, the whistleblower complaint alleged.
It centres on a 25 July phone call between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskiy in which the US president asked his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Mr Trump has called the allegations a witch-hunt.
In December, Mr Trump became
the third US president to be impeached
after the House of Representatives voted to impeach on both charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after hours of debate.
However minutes after the crucial votes the process was thrown into confusion when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to say when or whether she would send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial, and they are still yet to be sent.
