Full-blown warfare in cyberspace in progress, says Russian diplomat

Full-scale military activities are unfolding in cyberspace, Special Russian Presidential Representative for International Cooperation in Cybersecurity and Director of the Foreign Ministry International Security Department Andrey Krutskikh said at the 9th All-Russian congress of political scientists held at MGIMO University on Thursday.

“The war [in cyberspace] is underway and unfolding very intensively. No matter how hard we may try to say that all this is disguised and that it isn’t that war or this war, in actual fact, military activities in cyberspace are in full swing,” the diplomat said.

A change in the alignment of forces on the international scene as a result of this warfare is a key issue today, Krutskikh said. “The media rightly says that this a Third World War, and what matters now is to calculate the damage and determine who will lose it in the end and what shape the world will eventually acquire as a result of this war,” the Russian diplomat pointed out.

As the special Kremlin representative stressed, negotiations with the United States on cybersecurity are proceeding with great difficulty.

“Unfortunately, the talks [on cybersecurity with the US] are proceeding with great difficulty. Today, I will try to say a few words about how we are trying to come to an agreement with the Americans within the UN in order to somehow smooth over the possible consequences of all this,” the Russian envoy explained.

Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden leveled sanctions against Russia, claiming that the Kremlin had been behind the massive hack of the Texas-based SolarWinds company, which compromised the systems of more than 100 commercial firms around the world, as well as nine US government agencies. Moscow denied the allegation, saying, “It’s high time to put things in order on American soil, from where constant attacks on critical infrastructure in Russia emerge.”