MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. Konstantin Kosachev, Head of Russian Federation Council’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, considers Norway’s accusations of Russia’s involvement in cyberattack on the Norwegian parliament in August 2020 to be groundless.
"As usual, accusations are posed with no effort made to present any proof or to propose to discuss the incident at an expert level," Kosachev told TASS Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the senator reminded about another incident, when "a Federation Council employee has been apprehended without ground for a month, over a Norwegian lawmaker’s false accusation."
"When the accusations turned out to be false, neither the Norwegian Parliament, nor the Foreign Ministry bothered to apologize," Kosachev underscored.
On September 1, the Norwegian parliament announced that it was hit by a cyberattack, which leaked emails of lawmakers and parliamentary employees. A "number of immediate measures"were taken in order to thwart a cyberattack, according to Marianne Andreassen, the parliament’s chief administrator. Later, the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) said it will investigate whether "any state" is behind the cyberattack, which took place on August 24.
A Russian Federation Council employee Mikhail Bochkaryov was apprehended by the PST on September 21, 2018, in Oslo. According to the Norwegian counter-intelligence, the Russian citizen allegedly collected data via wireless networks during a parliamentary IT seminar, where he was invited by the authorities. The arrest was based on "suspicious behavior" of the Russian citizen, pointed out by the witnesses.
Russian embassy in Oslo stated that the case was contrived. The Russian citizen was released on October 19 and returned to Russia the next day. Russian senators expressed their protest over Bochkaryov’s apprehension and decided to refrain from visiting Norway for participation of inter-parliamentary events for a time being.