London and Washington accuse Russia of attempted political interference

Londres summoned the Russian ambassador, according to the British Foreign Office, while the US Department of Justice announced charges against two Russian citizens, including a Russian security service (FSB) agent.

“Russia’s attempts to interfere in British politics are absolutely unacceptable and seek to threaten our democratic processes,” said British Foreign Minister David Cameron, quoted in a statement.

“Despite their repeated efforts, they failed,” he assured.

According to the British ministry, some attacks resulted in “the leakage of documents”, but “attempts to interfere in British politics and democracy have not been successful”.

The targets were public officials, journalists and NGOs.

We will not stand for interference in our democracy.

Foreign Secretary @David_Cameron on the UK sanctioning Russian operatives aiming to interfere in UK politics. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/XnbAWf0Bhv

— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) December 7, 2023

The American judicial authorities, in turn, made public on Tuesday the accusation made by a court in San Francisco (west) against two Russian citizens, Ruslan Aleksandrovich Peretyatko, an FSB agent according to Washington and London, and Andreï Stanislavovich Korinets .

These two men may be in Russia and are accused of having led “a computer hacking campaign on the computer networks of the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, on behalf of the Russian government,” the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

In the United States, these ‘hacking’ attempts “targeted employees or former employees of the intelligence services, the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of Energy, at least between October 2016 and October 2022”, according to according to the press release.

The two suspects belong to an alleged group of ‘hackers’ associated with Center 18, a specialized unit of the FSB identified as ‘Star Blizzard’ by London or ‘Callisto Group’ by Washington.

These two men are now the target of British sanctions, but also from the US Treasury, and the State Department has announced a reward of up to 10 million dollars for any information leading to their location and arrest, as well as their accomplices.

A senior Justice Department official acknowledged to France-Presse (AFP) that making these processes public probably made arrests more difficult, but the initiative was justified by the need to disrupt the activities of hackers.

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