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The Dutch government has defended the decision not to arrest four Russians accused of attempting cyber attacks on the global chemical weapons monitoring group in The Hague.
The suspected Russian agents were sent home because it was not a criminal investigation, said Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The United States and the United Kingdom have joined the Netherlands in accusing Russian spies of a series of cyber-conspiracies around the world.
Russia has complained of a "propaganda campaign run by the theater".
According to reports from Moscow on Friday, the ambassador of the Netherlands was summoned by Russia.
What is Russia accused of?
- The Netherlands said it surprised four Russian military intelligence officers GRU in The Hague in April while they were trying to hack the organization's WI-FI network. The OIAC was investigating a chemical attack in Syria and a nerve agent against Sergei Skripal – a former Russian spy in the UK
- One of the four agents, said the Netherlands, was in Malaysia and was targeting the investigation of the plane MH17, shot down in eastern Ukraine.
- The United States has laid charges against seven agents for targeting its anti-doping agency, the governing body of football, FIFA, and the US Westinghouse nuclear power company. Of the seven indicted, four were men deported from the Netherlands, while the other three were among those accused in July of hacking Democratic officials in the 2016 US elections.
- Canada said "with great confidence" that Russia was at the root of infractions to its ethics center in sport and to the World Anti-Doping Agency, based in Montreal.
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The UK has accused the GRU of four high-profile cyber-attacks, which included Russian and Ukrainian companies; the American Democratic Party; and a small television network in the UK
Read more: Transparency – the tool to counter Russia
& # 39; Spy Mania & # 39;
By Steven Rosenberg, BBC correspondent in Moscow
It's become a familiar model.
The West accuses Moscow of violating international law and provides evidence; Moscow denies it and makes fun of pretensions.
The history of military pirates is not different. Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media dismissed Western statements about GRU cyber attacks with a phrase: "Spy Mania".
This morning, the Izvestia newspaper claimed that "the spy-mania virus had once again infected the West".
The government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta maintained that the charges of piracy of Russian military intelligence were "unfounded".
The Russian Foreign Ministry has already rejected "Western hysteria about all-powerful Russian cyber-spies".
The tone is impetuous, mocking and warlike. The message to the West – between the lines – is that Russia can not be subject to pressure or isolation.
But existing sanctions against Russia are beginning to be felt and the country's economic problems are worsening. If the latest claims about GRU hackers spark a new round of Western sanctions, Russia's economic woes will only increase.
Who were the suspects in The Hague?
The four men had arrived at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam in April with diplomatic passports, had rented a car and had parked it at the Hague Marriott Hotel, next to the office of the OPCW.
Their goal was to hack the OPCW's Wi-Fi network from the trunk of their car, said the head of the Dutch intelligence service MIVD, General Onno Eichelsheim.
He identified the men as computer hackers Alexei Morenetz and Yevgeny Serebriakov, as well as support agents Oleg Sotnikov and Alexei Minin.
Officials said they belonged to GRU unit 26165, also known as APT 28. The UK's ambassador to the Netherlands, Peter Wilson, said that the company was not in charge. unit had "sent officers around the world to carry out shameless cyber-operations with close access" – involve hacking into wifi networks.
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Ministrie van Defensie
When the men were arrested, many technical equipment, cell phones and a laptop were seized. But the men themselves were escorted to the airport and boarded the plane to return home rather than being arrested.
They had train tickets to the Swiss capital Berne on April 17, and planned to target a laboratory in Spiez where the OPCW analyzed samples, Dutch officials said.
Among the mobile phones seized, one would have been activated near the GRU building in Moscow.
We also found a receipt for a taxi ride from a street near the GRU to the airport. The taxi company has confirmed to the BBC that the receipt is authentic.
Why were they sent home?
The fact that the men traveled with diplomatic passports did not prevent their arrest because they were not diplomats accredited in the Netherlands.
Questions were asked about the decision to return the suspects to their homes immediately rather than detain them. Hours after the revelations on the cyber plot, US justice officials have laid charges against the four suspects and three others.
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Dutch Government
The Dutch intelligence services named the four suspects who went to the Netherlands with diplomatic passports in April
Asked Thursday night on Dutch television about why the men had not been arrested, Major-General Eichelsheim explained that it was a counterintelligence operation specifically aimed at collecting information and ensuring the security of the Netherlands.
Political leaders agreed that the men had not been arrested as it was an intelligence operation rather than a criminal investigation conducted by the police.
According to the Dutch expert Willemijn Aerdts of the University of Leiden, the intelligence services have no power of arrest or prosecution.
"If they arrested them, they should have informed the police," she told the BBC.
"It may have been a difficult decision, but it was probably also a political matter, the defense minister would have known."
"I do not want to describe this as" letting them go, "said the head of the Dutch military intelligence. "We have disrupted an operation, that's how we do this type of operation."
In response to the so-called cyber plot, he said, "I will not let that happen," he said.
What did we learn about the so-called cyber-plot?
The laptop seized suspects would have been used in Brazil, Switzerland and Malaysia, announced Dutch officials.
According to the United Kingdom's ambassador to the Netherlands, the cyber-operation in Malaysia had targeted the Attorney General's Office and the Malaysian Police, as well as the HM17 accident investigation, which cost the lives of 298 people.
Earlier this year, international investigators led by the Netherlands concluded that the Buk missile that shot down the plane had been transported by road from a Russian military base.
The data from the laptop showed that it had also been used in the Swiss city of Lausanne and was related to the hacking of a laptop belonging to the World Anti-Doping Agency Wada, which revealed the doping of Russian athletes.
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FBI
The FBI published this "wanted" poster, naming and illustrating the seven men
The equipment found in the trunk of the rental car was directed to the OPCW and was being used to intercept the connection information, said the Dutch military intelligence officer, adding that the antenna of the car was not safe. Operation had been placed under a jacket on the back shelf of the car.
When the men were intercepted, they tried to destroy one of the cell phones that they were carrying, said Major-General Eichelsheim.
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