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A10 WORLD NEWS
Friday 5 OctOber 2018
West accuses Russian spy agency GRU of scores of attacks

By GREGORY KATZ dents. They include four
RAPHAEL SATTER GRU agents expelled last
LORNE COOK spring from the Nether-
Associated Press lands.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The Unit- They were identified
ed States and other West- as: Aleksei Sergeyev-
ern nations leveled a tor- ich Morenets, 41; Evgenii
rent of new allegations Mikhaylovich Serebria-
against Moscow's secretive kov, 37; Ivan Sergeyevich
GRU military spy agency Yermakov, 32; Artem An-
on Thursday, accusing its dreyevich Malyshev, 30;
agents of hacking anti- and Dmitriy Sergeyevich
doping agencies, plane Badin, 27; who were each
crash investigations and a assigned to Military Unit
chemical weapons probe 26165, and Oleg Mikhay-
as well as launching cyber- lovich Sotnikov, 46, and
attacks that rocked Ameri- Alexey Valerevich Minin,
ca's 2016 election and crip- 46, who were also GRU of-
pled Ukraine in 2017. ficers.
The roll-call of GRU malfea- The U.S. indictment says the
sance began at midnight hacking was often con-
in Britain, when British and ducted remotely.
Australian authorities ac- If that wasn't successful,
cused the Russian agency the hackers would con-
of being behind the cata- In this Thursday Oct. 4, 2018 image, four Russian officers of Main Directorate of the General Staff of duct "on-site" or "close ac-
the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, GRU, are escorted to their flight after being expelled
strophic cyberattack that from the Netherlands on April 13, 2018, for allegedly trying to hack into the U.N. chemical watch- cess" hacking operations,
caused billions in losses to dog OPCW's network. with trained GRU members
Ukraine in June 2017 and Associated Press traveling with sophisticated
a host of other hacks, in- equipment to target their
cluding the Democratic broadcast photos and a chemical weapons watch- to pay the piper. They are victims through Wi-Fi net-
Party email leaks and on- timeline of GRU agents' dog was investigating a going to have to be held works.
line cyber propaganda botched attempt to break Novichok nerve agent at- to account," Mattis said, The GRU's alleged hacking
that sowed havoc before into the Organization for tack on a former GRU spy, speaking in Brussels where attempts on the chemical
Americans voted in the the Prohibition of Chemical Sergei Skripal, that Britain he was meeting with NATO watchdog agency based
2016 presidential election. Weapons using Wi-Fi hack- has blamed on the Russian allies. in The Hague, Netherlands,
Hours later Thursday morn- ing equipment hidden in government. Moscow has Moscow issued more deni- took place in April and
ing, Dutch defense officials the back of a sedan. The denied the charge. als on Thursday, but the al- were disrupted by authori-
The Dutch also accused legations leveled by West- ties, Dutch Defense Minister
the Russian agency of try- ern intelligence agencies, Ank Bijleveld said Thursday.
ing to hack into the inves- supported by a wealth of Four Russian intelligence
tigation of the 2014 down- surveillance footage and officers were immediately
ing of a Malaysian Airlines overwhelmingly confirmed expelled from the Nether-
flight over eastern Ukraine by independent reporting, lands, she said. Those were
that killed all 298 people painted a picture of the Minin, Sotnikov, Serebriakov
on board. A Dutch-led in- GRU as an agency that and Morenets.
vestigation team says it has routinely crosses red lines The British ambassador to
strong evidence that the — and is increasingly be- the Netherlands said the
Buk missile which brought ing caught red-handed men caught with spy gear
the plane down came from around the world. outside OPCW were from
a Russia-based military The U.S. indictment said the very same GRU sec-
unit. Russia has denied the the GRU targeted its vic- tion (Unit 26165) accused
charge. tims because they had by American investigators
Then came the U.S. gov- publicly supported a ban of having broken into the
ernment's turn, with the on Russian athletes in in- Democratic National Com-
U.S. Justice Department ternational sports compe- mittee's email system be-
charging seven Russian titions and because they fore the 2016 U.S. election.
GRU intelligence officers — had condemned Russia's On Thursday, Australian
including the four nabbed state-sponsored athlete and British spies endorsed
in The Hague — of an inter- doping program. U.S. pros- the American intelligence
national hacking rampage ecutors said the Russians community's reported attri-
that targeted more than also targeted a Pennsylva- bution of the catastrophic
250 athletes, a nuclear en- nia-based nuclear energy June 2017 cyberattack on
ergy company and a Swiss company and the OPCW, Ukraine to the GRU. The ma-
chemical laboratory. which was investigating licious software outbreak
U.S. Defense Secretary possible war crimes in Syria briefly knocked out cash
James Mattis said the West and the March poisoning machines, gas stations,
has "a wide variety of re- of Skripal and his daughter pharmacies and hospitals
sponses" available. in the English city of Salis- and, according to a secret
"Basically, the Russians got bury. White House assessment
caught with their equip- The U.S. indictment says recently cited by Wired,
ment, people who were the seven defendants are dealt $10 billion worth of
doing it, and they have got all Russian citizens and resi- damage worldwide.q