United Kingdom and Netherlands accuse Russia of piracy, including chemical weapons monitoring

LONDON / HAGUE (Reuters) – Britain and the Netherlands have accused Russia of a global campaign of cyber-attacks aimed at undermining Western democracies, including what the Dutch government has described as an attempt by piracy of the chemical weapons monitoring mechanism in the United States.

Moscow has denied what his Foreign Ministry spokesman has called a "cocktail of evil perfumes" allegations on the part of a "rich imagination". But the accusations will reinforce Moscow's isolation at a time when its diplomatic relations with the West have been degraded following the poisoning of a spy in England and under the US and European sanctions regime for its actions in Ukraine .

The Dutch authorities have reportedly halted an attempt by the Hague-based organization, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in April. At the time, the American watchdog was investigating the poison used to attack an ex-spy in Britain and chemical weapons that, according to the West, were allegedly used in Syria by Russian President Bashar al-Assad, ally of Russia.

Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld has called on Russia to stop its cyber activities aimed at "undermining" Western democracies.

According to a statement by the head of the Netherlands Military Intelligence Agency, four Russians arrived in the Netherlands on April 10 and were arrested with espionage equipment at a hotel near the OPCW headquarters.

The four Russians in the Netherlands were arrested on 13 April and deported to Russia, the Dutch general Onno Eichelsheim announced. They had planned to visit a laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, used by the OPCW to analyze samples, he said.

Russian military intelligence "is active here in the Netherlands … where many international organizations are (based)," said Eichelsheim.

AGGRESSOR

Earlier Thursday, Britain released an assessment based on the work of its National Center for Cyber ​​Security (NCSC), in which the Russian military intelligence service GRU is described as cyber-aggressor who uses a network of pirates to sow global discord.

Britain, said Britain, was almost certainly behind the 2017 attacks by the BadRabbit and the World Anti-Doping Agency, the hacking of the US National Democratic Committee (DNC) in 2016 and the theft of e-mails from a British TV channel in 2015.

"The actions of the GRU are irresponsible and blind: they are trying to undermine the elections in other countries and to ingest them in their elections," said British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

"Our message is clear: with our allies, we will expose and respond to GRU's attempts to undermine international stability," Hunt said.

The GRU, now officially known in Russia as GU, is also the British agency accused in the past of having sent two agents in England to poison the former spy Sergei Skripal with a chemical weapon sprayed at his door.

Skripal, his daughter and a policeman fell seriously ill; a woman died later after her partner found the poison in a discarded perfume bottle. According to Russia, the two men responsible for the attack by Britain are the tourists who have visited Twice twice in the hometown of Skripal during a weekend trip to England. This story is so far-fetched that it proves Moscow's guilt.

After the poisoning of Skripal, dozens of Western countries have carried out the largest expulsion of Russian spies operating under diplomatic cover since the height of the Cold War. Moscow responded by expelling the Westerners.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB spy, said on Wednesday that Skripal, a GRU officer who had betrayed dozens of British MI6 spy agents, was a "fool" who had betrayed Russia.

Britain said the GRU was associated with many hackers, including APT 28, Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Pawnstorm, Sednit, CyberCaliphate, Cyber ​​Berkut, Voodoo Bear and BlackEnergy Actors.

"This type of behavior demonstrates their willingness to act without respect for international law or established standards, with a sense of impunity and without consequences," Hunt said.

The United States sanctioned GRU officers, including its leader, Igor Korobov, in 2016 and 2018 for attempting to interfere in the 2016 US election and for cyberattacks.

Australia and New Zealand supported the UK's findings on GRU.

"Cyberspace is not the Wild West. The international community – including Russia – has agreed that cyberspace is governed by international law and the standards of behavior of responsible states, "said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

"By adopting a scheme of malicious cyber-behavior, Russia has shown total disregard for the agreements that it has helped to negotiate," Morrison said.