Such facilities are being setup in Estonia, Latvia, Finland and Romania, a high-ranking Russian diplomat has said
NATO is trying to surround Russia with a network of cyber-laboratories as part of its hybrid war against the country, the Special Representative of the Russian President for International Cooperation on Information Security, Artur Lyukmanov, has warned.
The US-led bloc has long been working on developing ways to take on Russia in the infosphere, Lyukmanov said in an interview with RIA-Novosti on Saturday.
Ukraine has been its “main testing ground,” with hackers from the country “carrying out acts of electronic sabotage under the close guidance of the curators from NATO,” he said.
Russia is aware of “entire units of Western intelligence services and armed forces being sent to Kiev” to assist the Ukrainians with hacking activities, the diplomat, who also heads the Department of International Information Security at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, added.
According to the diplomat, in the future NATO also plans to open such facilities in Georgia and Moldova, who are not members of the bloc.
“Under the auspices of the Pentagon, cyber exercises are being carried out systematically, during which scenarios of confrontation with [Russia] in the digital realm are being tested,” he said.
Not a new tactic but worrying. It is a force multiplier and a serious one. Weak as the US is and unwilling as they are to sacrifice lots of their own people they find plenty of compradors, radicalized and indoctrinated liberals, open fascists, etc more than eager to take up weapons whether actual weapons or doing this, disinfo, misinformation, hacking campaigns, etc. The US simply doesn’t have the quality to challenge Russia in this domain so they’re trying to make it up with mass quantity and it is a real problem. That and of course it’s easier to get a bunch of indoctrinated anti-Russian Eastern European liberals to do the censoring and deplatforming and attacks against anti-imperialist messaging than westerners.
As the IRA once quipped regarding a failed operation to assassinate an important British official, “We missed today, but all it takes for us to win is to succeed once whereas you must succeed every day and every time in stopping us”. And that’s a problem for not just Russia but China as they won’t limit using these types to just attacking Russia.
There is evidence that the US has held back on unleashing all its capabilities in the hacking realm on Russia because they believe there will be a better moment or else that they’re better reserved for China.