Russia's Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov stated that Western countries timed their accusations against Moscow concerning the alleged cyber-attack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to the upcoming session of the organization’s executive council (set to take place on October 9) and the North Atlantic Council meeting, which ended on Thursday. The diplomat expressed this opinion in an interview with journalists on Friday.

"What caused them (the leadership of Western countries - TASS) to wait six months to start this coordinated campaign and to dump it all in one go from different sources?" the diplomat asked. "I would define two points: firstly, the North Atlantic Council session between defense ministers, which has just ended in Brussels. One of the issues that they discussed during [the session] was strengthening the Alliance’s potential in combating cyber threats, as they state it. To put it simply, this is a principal decision to create some sort of cyber forces."

"Secondly, on October 9, another meeting of the OPCW Executive Council will take place in The Hague," Chizhov added. "The issue on the agenda is something that Western counties have managed to push through by carefully convincing several countries, including some that are rather far from The Hague and the OPCW. It deals with granting the OPCW, a technical organization, an attributive mechanism, that is, a mechanism of determining those responsible for certain incidents, or, God forbid, for cases of chemical weapon use. Next week, they will discuss the decision on funding this initiative in practical terms.

Fresh accusations

The US has announced "an indictment charging seven Russian military officers with violations of several U.S. criminal laws for malicious cyber activities against the United States and its allies," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers stated on Thursday.

Earlier, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld claimed at a news conference that Dutch military intelligence and security services had allegedly foiled an attack by Russian hackers against the OPCW. She claimed that four Russians - Alexey Morenets, Yevgeny Serebryakov, Oleg Sotnikov and Alexey Minin - were involved in the incident. Bijleveld claimed that all four worked for the Main Directorate (formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU) of Russia’s General Staff. According to her, the equipment confiscated from them held the evidence that they had tried to get access to information about the Malaysian MH17 flight disaster in Ukraine.

Also on Thursday, UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jeremy Hunt blamed the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces for organizing a series of cyberattacks that affected people’s interests across the globe. Hunt stated, as quoted by the Press Association, that Russian intelligence services are allegedly behind the attacks on political entities, businesses, media outlets and sports organizations.