WASHINGTON, October 13. /TASS/. Russia is responding to all US concerns in the cybersecurity domain, and the two countries have managed to achieve practical results in combating cybercrime, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday.
"The presidents of Russia and the United States have agreed to launch dialogue on cybersecurity. Four rounds of expert consultations under the auspices of the Security Councils of the two countries have taken place," he said at the opening of the Annual Meeting of the US-Russia Business Council via videoconference. "There are some little, but concrete results in curbing hacker activity. We are responding to all the concerns that Washington conveys to us through the established channels."
At the same time, the diplomat noted that Russia is also facing major cyber attacks on its web resources.
"One of the most recent incidents - heavy attacks against information network of the Russian Central Election Commission during the State Duma elections. Fifty percent of those attacks have been committed from the territory of the United States," he said.
In his words, it is important to understand that the fight against crime in the virtual space is only one of the aspects of international information security.
"This issue is much broader and, given the dynamic development of communication technologies, will require more and more attention," Antonov said. "In this regard, we have reiterated the proposal of the President of Russia from September 25, 2020, to establish comprehensive cooperation on cybersecurity issues in their entirety, including to prevent militarization of Internet and cyberweapons arms race."
Positive signs
According to the diplomat, first positive signs have emerged following the Geneva summit between the presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
"The constructive and businesslike meeting of the presidents made it possible to outline ways out of the dangerous impasse in the bilateral relations," he said.
"It has to do with the resumption of dialogue on strategic stability, which has always served as a kind of barometer of the general condition of Russian-U.S. relations. The second round of consultations between interagency delegations headed by deputy foreign ministers was held in Geneva on September 30," the diplomat continued. "The talk was professional and useful. A common understanding was reached regarding the goal of the strategic dialogue which is to define parameters of the arms control architecture as a follow-up to the existing New START Treaty."
Two working groups have been established, and this will help focus discussions, make them more substantive, Antonov went on.
"Our delegations deliberated on principles and tasks of the future arms control as well as capabilities and actions that could have a strategic effect," he said.