Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Britain, Government, National Security, Russia, Society, United States

The Kremlin’s power to paralyse

WESTERN SECURITY

RUSSIA’S tentacles of sinister cyber operations are snaking out across the globe and pose the gravest of threats to Western security and democracy.

Recent revelations expose the sheer scale, breadth and audacity of the Kremlin-backed plots – and our vulnerability to this new brand of warfare.

Among those who were targeted were a British television network, the Democratic Party in America, public transport hubs in Ukraine, the US engineering giant Westinghouse, and the World Anti-Doping Agency based in Montreal – apparently hacked in a brazen act of revenge for showing Russia’s systematic abuse of the testing regime at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.

Perhaps the most disturbing of all, however, was the unsuccessful attacks on our own soil – at the Foreign Office and Porton Down – and the foiled attempts by four Russian agents to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague.

The OPCW is continuing to conduct investigations into the Salisbury novichok poisonings and the use of banned weapons by the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria.

About a dozen or so “cyber-actors” have been identified as responsible, but they are all fronts for the GRU – the Russian military intelligence unit also implicated in the attempted assassination of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

Given are dependence on computers, its coordinated attacks have huge implications. Everything from cash machines to home heating systems, from electricity generators to mobile phones, and to the health service which is relying more on cyber technology. We have seen many times in recent years the enormous disruption caused by a temporary breakdown in service, as happened during the botched IT upgrade at the TSB bank.

Similarly, 18 months ago the NHS was hit by a major cyber problem, prompting the mass cancellations of appointments and operations. Then the North Korean government of Kim Jong-Un was cynical enough to take the blame and the fear inspired by that. But it is clear, from the wealth of mounting evidence, that the Russians certainly have the capability and determination to launch similar attacks.

If patients’ lives were put at risk by such a cyber-attack, it would create a real global panic – the cyber equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That is why we should be worried. What is happening now in cyberspace is even more dangerous and certainly more unpredictable than the darkest days of the Cold War.

For all the anxieties back then about a nuclear stand-off, at least the hostility between the West and the Soviet Bloc was governed by respected boundaries. The rules – such as a prohibition on assassinations – were generally upheld. Both sides communicated with each other, partly from the need to avoid a nuclear apocalypse through a catastrophic misunderstanding.

That culture has disappeared. We live in a much more fluid world where restrictions on movement – especially in Europe – hardly exist at all. At any given moment there are probably more than 100,000 Russians in Britain, most of them wholly innocent and here to work, study or by enjoying a break. Yet that transient mass also provides cover for hostile intelligence agents.

Moreover, technology makes it much easier for someone to cause mayhem. During the Cold War, if the Soviets wanted to hit a water pumping station or sabotage an aircraft, they had to send in armed agents. Today, that could be accomplished from an office in Moscow or Kiev – just as computer programs can churn out millions of emails to damage businesses, influence elections and propagate fake news and untruths.

Then there are the armies of hackers in “troll” factories who spread and disseminate destabilising information, such as Hillary Clinton’s emails or the intricate medical details of Olympic cyclist Bradley Wiggins’ asthma prescriptions. The aim is to undermine public respect for Western politicians and heroes alike.

The fall of the Berlin Wall almost three decades ago was a remarkable triumph for freedom and capitalism over totalitarianism. But that ascendency lulled Western politicians into a false sense of security.

Russia, which has an economy no bigger than that of Britain or France, is showing almost by the day that if resources are focused on a certain area – in this case cyber warfare – then a nation can still have lethal power.

And we are only just coming to terms with it. Lord Ricketts, who served as Britain’s National Security Adviser until 2012, has warned that the recent plots are just the start, “pilot projects” to test defences in advance of a full-blooded cyber assault to bring anarchy to the West.

As President Putin’s invasion of Crimea and his support for the blood-soaked Assad regime in Syria has shown, he is not a man constrained by normal democratic values. Throughout his presidency he has been pushing at boundaries, seeing what he can get away with, what will provoke the West to act.

Now his dwindling popularity at home over his domestic agenda – particularly his attempt to raise the retirement age – makes it all the more imperative for him to wrap himself in the nationalist flag with high-profile attacks on the West.

 

AT least the complacency in Europe and America is beginning to lift and we are starting to fight back – such as when the Dutch defence minister, Ank Bijeveld, and Peter Wilson, the British ambassador to the Netherlands, explained how the OPCW conspiracy was foiled.

In the context of cyber warfare, the West has unparalleled expertise. The staff of both the US National Security Agency and our own formidable base at GCHQ in Cheltenham have world-beating abilities in hacking computers and other electronic devices.

So far, the West has proved far more restrained than Russia in deploying that expertise. There is only one documented case of Western agents using a computer against an enemy state’s infrastructure. That occurred when the Israelis and the Americans worked together to release the Stuxnet virus into the computers that operated Iran’s nuclear programme. It proved what the West can do if necessary.

But any escalation in cyber warfare is fraught with risk. A miscalculation by any rogue agents, anxious to ingratiate themselves with the Kremlin, could have disastrous consequences.

The reality of the new world disorder is one in which Putin is not only promoting, but relishing. We would do well to remember that.

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Britain, Defence, Military, NATO, Russia, United States

Russia flexes its military muscles

VOSTOK-2018

RUSSIA is conducting a “worrying and alarming” build-up of military power in regions across the world.

As defence sources have warned that manoeuvres by Moscow should be regarded as a “threat to western democracy”, it has been increasing its submarine activity off British shores in a bid to gather intelligence.

And in recent weeks Russia has sent numerous warships and supply chains through the English Channel en route to the eastern Mediterranean. It is feared they are amassing ahead of an air assault on the rebel-held area of Idlib in Syria, which could risk the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians.

Despite the focus often put on Russia’s cyber-warfare capabilities, this week it will conduct its largest military exercise in 37 years, involving almost 300,000 troops, in a huge demonstration of force that is causing alarm in Whitehall. Moscow has boasted that the war games – which serve as a reminder to other nations that Russia maintains a huge conventional military arsenal – will involve 1,000 warplanes, helicopters and drones, up to 80 combat and logistics ships and around 36,000 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.

The exercises, called Vostok-2018, will be held in central and eastern Russia and will also include participants from the Mongolian and Chinese militaries.

The Kremlin says the drills are justified given the “aggressive and unfriendly” attitudes towards their country. Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said they will include “massive” mock airstrikes and tests of defences against cruise missiles.

A defence source in Britain said: “We are seeing an alarming amount of military power being brought to bear around the globe by Russia.

“We consider it a worrying build-up of conventional forces and arms. It can clearly be regarded as a threat to Western democracy. A miscalculation could very easily lead to an escalation.”

While NATO has beefed up defences in Eastern Europe, the Russians have been accused of undermining international efforts for an Afghan-led peace process by inviting the Taliban to Moscow for peace talks. And they have also been accused of indirectly arming the Taliban – something they have repeatedly denied.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has warned of the disruptive influence that the Russians were having on the peace process in Afghanistan. Mr Williamson says that we’re seeing a much greater interest from Russia in Afghanistan and Afghan affairs. There is ample evidence of Moscow meddling.

Mr Williamson said: “I would describe it as them wanting the NATO mission to fail. They do not want there to be seen to be the success of both the Afghan government and NATO. What it is very much designed to do is be a disruptor to other western nations which are trying to build stability in Afghanistan.”

The scale of the Vostok-2018 war games is equivalent to the forces deployed in one of the big Second World War battles. The exercises have been compared to Soviet manoeuvres in 1981, called Zapad-81, which involved simulated attacks on NATO.

President Vladimir Putin has made military modernisation, including new nuclear missiles, a priority.

The giant drill is an important show of strength by Putin, as a demonstration that – despite Western sanctions, including ones targeting his defence sector – his country remains defiant.

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Britain, Europe, Government, Russia, Society

The prospect of an escalating global war is terrifyingly real

THE WEST AND RUSSIA

THERESA MAY made perhaps the most momentous statement of her political career at Westminster when, in a dramatic scene in the Commons, she effectively accused the Russian state of an act of war. She said the Kremlin had instructed its military intelligence agency, the GRU, to assassinate the defector Sergei Skripal in March.

Backed up by a wealth of irrefutable evidence about the two Russian intelligence agents who carried out the assignment, which ultimately resulted in the death of a British citizen and three other serious poisoning cases, Mrs May’s assertion has huge implications, not only for Britain’s relations with the rogue Russian regime, but also for European and Western foreign policy as a whole.

The Salisbury incident is truly shocking. It is the first time that a Briton has been killed on our home soil by a chemical weapon deployed by a foreign power. Yet until it happened, Britain seemed utterly indifferent to the brutality of Vladimir Putin’s government.

 

AFTER Putin sanctioned and authorised another well publicised assault on British soil in 2006, when ex-Russian secret policeman Alexander Litvinenko was murdered with a radioactive poison in London, the initial shock and anger soon ebbed away to apathy, thanks in large part to the feebleness of our Government’s response.

Whilst it is true that the British authorities were quick to name the Russian suspects, the speed of this early announcement was not matched by resolute action from the Government.

The huffing and puffing in Whitehall produced half-measures. That can only have reassured the Russian spymasters that they could get away with assassination.

Sine then we have all become aware of the litany of charges against Russia, like its seizure of Crimea, its blood-soaked intervention in Syria in aide of President Assad’s tyranny and its shooting down of the Malaysian airliner MH17 over rebel-held Ukraine in 2014.

But all those atrocities happened abroad, it was argued. They were nothing to do with us, so a proverbial slap on the wrists would surely do.

In contrast, from the start of the Skripal case, the Prime Minister has been far tougher, imposing sanctions, expelling Russian diplomats, galvanising NATO, and even winning the support of Donald Trump’s White House and the EU for her actions.

Admittedly, this was partly because the potential consequence of the Salisbury poisoning was even more serious than the Litvinenko case, given that Novichok put hundreds of lives at risk.

Nevertheless, the British Government has, despite all its problems with Brexit, displayed a commendable spirit of resolution that has been all too absent until now.

Through her clear-sighted resolution, Theresa May has mounted a direct challenge to Putin’s regime.

And although it has taken six months to name the alleged perpetrators, it has been worth the wait. Thanks to the thoroughness of the investigation, the sheer weight of incriminating material she was able to announce in the Commons means that the Russian state cannot slide away from its responsibility for this crime.

What her Commons statement also did was to blow apart the absurd conspiracy theories about the Salisbury assault that have been circulating, many of them promoted by Putin’s regime or by Kremlin sympathisers.

The evidence, gathered by 250 detectives from 11,000 hours of CCTV footage, shows incontestably where the blame lies. This raises the question as to why the Kremlin resorted to such an act. The answer lies in Putin’s security policy, which is so important to his macho political persona and the image of his regime’s invincibility.

As a former KGB officer himself, he has made ruthlessness a central part of his strongman reputation. It thereby enhances his appeal among the Russian people.

When he first came to power in 2000 on his election as Russian president, there were profound weaknesses in the country’s security apparatus, epitomised by the defections of agents like Litvinenko and Skripal.

 

SO much information was leaked after the fall of communism that Western intelligence thought they had crippled Russia’s GRU agency, giving MI6 and the CIA a window directly into Russian policymaking which helped them to predict the Kremlin’s actions.

But Putin changed all that through a pitiless crackdown. Internal security was vastly improved and leaks closed.

The CIA has privately admitted that many of its contacts in Moscow have gone silent. Some have disappeared. Others simply do not respond to efforts to contact them.

Dealing mercilessly with the defectors became an essential part of that security crackdown.

Since March, it has often been asked why Skripal, a former double agent, should still be a target, so many years after Putin let him out of the Gulag and allowed him to retire to Britain. It appears that Putin’s intelligence services have decided that letting defectors sleep soundly at night offers too much temptation for others to follow suit.

Kill one, frighten 10,000 is an old tactic, and one that the Russians seem to have adopted. Washington certainly believes that putting the fear of God into potential double-agents was the real reason for poisoning Sergei Skripal.

The Salisbury attack may also reflect Putin’s wider, geopolitical strategy, with its focus on dividing the West through surprise, propaganda and intimidation. Years ago he decided the West, particularly America and Britain, wanted to get rid of his regime.

Instead of asking what he could do to allay Western concerns, he adopted the opposite course by using Russian wealth from the country’s energy resources, plus the long experience of Soviet spycraft, to mount campaigns of disinformation and denial.

Until Salisbury, that strategy appeared to be working. The Novichok assault, however, led to an unprecedented act of unity – due in part to the British Government’s resolve.

The West hung together and backed Britain. The question now is whether this accord will last. The Prime Minister has said that she will be trying to mobilise the EU to harden sanctions on Russia and co-ordinate counter-measures against Russian intelligence operations in Europe.

That could be easier said than done. The wall of unity is already showing signs of cracking. Apart from the awkwardness created by Brexit, Putin’s policy of divide and conquer is also having an impact, for the Russian president has been soft-talking allies in the EU.

Last month, for instance, he was a guest at the Austrian foreign minister’s wedding, and Vienna’s Right-wing government is one of the loudest voices in the EU clamouring for improving relations with Moscow.

In Italy, the new government is led by a critic of sanctions against Russia, so imposing new ones is unlikely to win Rome’s support.

Yet, Britain cannot possibly let the Salisbury attack slide away into unpunished oblivion as it did the Litvinenko case.

The need for action is all the more important because, worryingly, the balance of global power is sliding away from the West. The U.S., Britain and the EU are still economically potent, of course, but the rise of China as both an economic and military superpower adds to the challenge posed by Russia and other states.

Even Turkey, a member of NATO, is moving away from the West under President Erdogan. The fact is that the Salisbury outrage is a graphic indicator that the world is becoming a less stable place. It was a rare but disturbing episode that exposed the nature of the escalating global war between spy agencies.

In its aftermath, that war is likely to intensify.

Which makes it all the more imperative that the Government is robust and vigilant. The West needs to be resolute and united in the face of Putin’s ruthlessness.

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