The US Justice Department indicted seven agents of Russia’s GRU military agency as part of a joint crackdown with allies Britain and Netherlands for multiple cyberattacks around the world. GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye) which stands for the Main…
The US Justice Department indicted seven agents of Russia’s GRU military agency as part of a joint crackdown with allies Britain and Netherlands for multiple cyber attacks around the world.
Background
GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye) which stands for the Main Intelligence Directorate is the military intelligence service of Russian Federation. It has agents across the globe and answers directly to the chief of the general staff and the Russian defence minister. The GRU does not comment publicly on its actions. Its structure, staff numbers and financing are Russian state secrets.
The GRU traces its history back to the times of Ivan the Terrible, though it was founded as the Registration Directorate in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution. Vladimir Lenin insisted on its independence from other secret services. It is one of Russia’s two main intelligence agencies.
In recent years, GRU has been accused by UK, Netherlands and USA on various counts including the probe into downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.
Analysis
The United States Department of Justice on Thursday charged seven Russian military intelligence officers with conspiring to hack computers and steal data from the nuclear energy company Westinghouse Electric Co. as well as anti-doping watchdogs, sporting federations and an international agency probing the use of chemical weapons.
They had conspired to hack and steal data in a bid to delegitimise international anti-doping organisations and expose officials who revealed a Russian state-sponsored athlete doping programme. The charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, money laundering, using virtual currencies like bitcoin, wire fraud and identity theft came after Dutch authorities said they had disrupted an attempt by Russian intelligence agents to hack into the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in April.
John Demers, US assistant attorney general for National Security, said the seven officers were indicted in connection to the attack on the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), on football’s governing body FIFA and the US and global anti-doping agencies, and on the US nuclear energy company Westinghouse among others.
The defendants, all Russian nationals and residents, were named as Aleksei Sergeyevich Morenets, 41, Evgenii Mikhaylovich, Serebriakov, 37, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, 32, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, 30, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, 27, Oleg Mikhaylovich Sotnikov, 46, and Alexey Valerevich Minin, 46.
GRU has been accused of probing the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Yermakov, Malyshev, and Badin were among the 12 GRU officers indicted in July this year by special counsel Robert Mueller over alleged interference in the US polls in 2016.
London has also accused two of GRU’s officers of poisoning former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury in March, using a perfume bottle containing a powerful nerve agent. Canada has also joined the chorus in outing Russia over repeated cyber attacks as the US charges 7 spies with hacking. The department cited the 2016 hack of the World Anti-Doping Agency that resulted in confidential athlete data being obtained by malicious actors.
The GRU campaign ran from December 2014 until at least May 2018, targeting US persons, corporations and international organisations based on their strategic interest to the Russian government, officials said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned Russia to halt its “reckless” behaviour amid a series of global cyberattacks blamed on Moscow, and said NATO allies stand united behind the UK and Dutch governments.
Counterpoint
Russia rejected British accusations that its spies were behind global cyber-attacks, saying the allegations were unworthy and part of a disinformation campaign designed to damage Russian interests, the TASS news agency reported.
Russia has also denied meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, contradicting a unanimous conclusion by all U.S. intelligence agencies.
Assessment
Our assessment is that Russian interests are at stake in all these cases.
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