Germany summons Russian ambassador over hacking
Germany summoned Russia’s ambassador in Berlin yesterday to protest a 2015 hacking attack on the Bundestag parliament, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. Undersecretary Miguel Berger voiced Germany’s sharp condemnation in a talk with ambassador Sergei Nechayev. “The Russian ambassador was informed, with reference to the arrest warrant issued by the investigating magistrate of the Federal Court of Justice at the request of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office on 29 April 2020 against Russian national Dmitri Badin, that the Federal Government will call in Brussels for the EU’s cyber-sanctions regime to be invoked with respect to those responsible for the attack on the German Bundestag, including Mr Badin,” a statement read. The warrant was issued due to evidence that the accused “conspired with other hitherto anonymous persons to carry out intelligence activities against the Federal Republic of Germany on behalf of the secret service of a foreign power”, it added. Badin is allegedly responsible for the attack targeting the German parliament in April-May 2015 and media reports say he is a member of the APT28 Russian hacking group. “There is credible evidence that he was a member of the GRU military intelligence service at the time of the attack,” the Foreign Office statement said. On May 13, German Chancellor Angela Merkel lambasted Russia in a speech to parliament, threatening Moscow with consequences. An investigation instituted by Germany’s attorney-general found “hard evidence” of Russian involvement in the attack, the chancellor said, criticising Russia’s “outrageous” behaviour.
A response from Russia came quickly. Senior foreign policy official Leonid Slutsky has denounced the allegations as unfounded. “We are talking about events from five years ago. No evidence has been presented. There are only unfounded allegations,” Slutsky, international affairs chairman in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said in comments carried by the Russian news agency Interfax. “It’s like a post-pandemic cold shower, an attempt to bring everything back to square one in the Western world, where Russia is absolutely unjustly accused of all sins on the basis of mere speculation,” Slutsky said.