MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks that Russia and the US need to reach an agreement on incident prevention in the cybersphere.

"To jointly develop and conclude a bilateral intergovernmental agreement on preventing incidents in the information space similarly to the Soviet-American Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents On and Over the High Seas in force since May 25, 1972," Putin’s statement on a comprehensive program of measures for restoring the Russia - US cooperation in the field of international information security reads. The text of Putin's statement was read out by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose speech was uploaded to the Kremlin website on Friday.

Vladimir Putin proposed launching a bilateral expert dialogue on the international cybersecurity instead of making this sphere 'a hostage to political disagreements.' "We call on the US to greenlight the Russian-American professional expert dialogue on IIS without making it a hostage to our political disagreements." 

The president described the possibility of a large-scale confrontation emerging in the digital sphere as one of the major challenges the modern world is facing. "One of today’s major strategic challenges is the risk of a large-scale confrontation in the digital field."

The president has called on the countries of the world to reach a global agreement on no-first-strike in relation to cyberattacks. "Addressing all countries, including the US, we suggest reaching global agreement on a political commitment of States on no-first-strike with the use of ICTs against each other," he noted.

Non-interference

Russia and the United States both need guarantees of non-interference in each other's internal affairs, Vladimir Putin stated. "To exchange, in a mutually acceptable format, guarantees of non-intervention into internal affairs of each other, including into electoral processes, inter alia, by means of the ICTs and high-tech methods."