LONDON, October 20. /TASS/. The claims that Russia had been allegedly carrying out cyber attacks can be simply attributed to the fact that London is trying to sour relations between Russia and other states, and have no real evidence backing them up, the Russian embassy said in a comment.
“Using the topic of the Olympics in South Korea and Japan, the British are also seeking to undermine constructive relations between Russia and these countries. There is nothing new about it, considering how much effort was spent by London to drive a wedge in our ties with Ukraine and Georgia, for example. These ‘endeavors’ are destructive for Russian-British relations and for the UK’s international prestige,” the embassy noted.
Russian diplomats pointed out that they consider the new accusations as a “wave of unprovoked malign attacks” conducted as part of a “consistent disinformation campaign to smear Russia.” The embassy links this new crusade to malign Russia to the US presidential election, since the US Justice Department indicted six Russians on charges of cyber attacks on Monday.
“As these accusations lack any real substance, we see no point in commenting on them. We will only note that the British side is perfectly aware of the existing mechanisms of professional cooperation in the event of suspicious activity along computer networks. Russia has this cooperation established with many countries, even with Western states. The UK ignores these mechanisms,” the embassy stressed.
The UK Foreign Office on Monday claimed that Russian intelligence services used cyber attacks to disrupt the Tokyo Olympics before they were rescheduled to 2021 due to the pandemic and previously allegedly tried to disable computer systems during the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Moscow has repeatedly denied these accusations by Western states.