UNITED NATIONS, June 29. /TASS/. Russia believes that the existing procedure of drafting rules of the conduct in cyberspace under the auspices of the UN General Assembly remains effective, and it will resist attempts at revising the agreements reached through the UN Security Council, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said at a meeting of the Security Council on peace and security in cyberspace on Tuesday.
"With regret, we see attempts to extract from this package (the package of agreements on responsible behavior in cyberspace, developed by the UN General Assembly's working group - TASS) selected provisions that are most advantageous for our Western counterparts in combination with the incorrect interpretation of the 'automatic' applicability of international law to cyberspace, which allows for the use of force in it, and to present their own national views as a result of a global consensus. For this reason, we will resist any attempts at revising through the UN Security Council the balanced agreements, achieved on the corresponding platforms of the UN General Assembly," he said.
Nebenzya stressed that the formats created on the UN General Assembly's platform remained the best place for discussing cybersecurity problems.
"It is there that for five years to come experts will be discussing all aspects of this issue. Let us focus on supporting this unique process," Nebenzya said.
The Russian ambassador stressed the impermissibility of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries in the cyber sphere.
"We stand for the inviolable sovereignty of states in the cyber sphere. Each country should be free to decide on its own the parameters of controlling its cyberspace and the corresponding infrastructure," he said.
Cooperation in cyberspace
In the international scene, Russia systematically presses to conclude international agreements that would establish a code of conduct for countries to follow in cyberspace.
At Russia's initiative in 2018 a UN Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security was established. The group's activities ended in 2021 with the adoption of a report on international information security, which outlined the principles and norms of action by states in this field.
However, a number of countries, in their attempts to establish certain rules, have been reluctant to join in with specific work for drafting binding agreements. The United States has refused to conduct a dialogue with Russia in this sphere for a long time.