This afternoon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that Russia is said to have been behind the IT attack on the Storting at the end of August.
Storting representative Michael Tetzschner (H) calls the attack very serious and believes that this also defines the cyber domain as an area for acts of war.
– Due to the potential for destruction, an attack via digital roads can be on a par with ordinary, physical sabotage, he says to Dagbladet.
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– Same pattern
– What are the Russians doing here? Do they show power, that they can harm us if they want to? How do you interpret this?
– Now I will leave it to those who are closer to the details and will make a deeper analysis of this. But it is quite obvious that one has not had any inhibitions, considering that the risk of detection is significant. Then you can also say that this is the same pattern that you see in the use of poison gas, says Tetzschner.
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– How do they use the poisons, which they know will be traced back to themselves, to give a message?
– Yes exactly. The Novitsjok poison that has hit an innocent civilian in Salisbury was meant to kill a former defector. And it also affected his daughter, says Tetzschner and refers, among other things, to the very well-known Skripal case.
– They are willing to work quite hard, he says.
– Not surprised
Skripal and Navalny
On March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, UK. British authorities believe that the two were poisoned with novitiate, a neurotoxin developed in the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, and accuse Russia of being behind it – something the Russian authorities deny.
Recently, Putin’s great rival, Alexei Navalny, also fell ill on a domestic flight in Siberia on August 20. He was treated by Russian doctors at first, but after international pressure he was flown to Germany for treatment two days later. The Putin critic was then in a coma, but has since recovered.
– May have swallowed the poison himself
Several laboratories have determined that Navalny was poisoned by novice shock, and Navalny accuses Putin of being behind the poison attack.
– The Putin regime is leaving bloody footprints behind. Among the things they also leave behind are novitsjok imprints, as stated by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, says Tetzschner.
– Hostile action
– What has the attack said for the relationship between Norway and Russia?
Russia’s reputation has already been severely damaged by the occupation of the Crimean sea island and the hostilities in eastern Ukraine. But when it comes to a country that should definitely be outside Russia’s traditional sphere of influence, it belongs to a new serious dimension in the whole, says Tetzschner.
– Can this be related to espionage from earlier? Will Russia show what they can do to us?
– They can have many operations going on. There are many needles and messages in this, but it must be defined as a direct hostile act towards Norway, he says.
Mikhail Botshkarev came to Norway as a senior adviser in the department of information technology in the Russian Federation Council. During a seminar in the Storting, there was a reaction to the Russian’s behavior and PST was contacted.
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He was charged with violating section 121 of the Criminal Code on intelligence activities against state secrets. Botshkarev was remanded in custody for about a month before he was released by the Oslo District Court in October 2018. In April last year, it became known that the Attorney General had dropped the charges against him.
An increasingly difficult relationship
– No wonder
Anniken Huitfeldt (Labor Party) also calls the IT attack a “very serious attack on our democratic institution.”
– Unfortunately, it is not surprising. We have been subjected to jamming of the GSM network during a NATO exercise. Then it is important that we react from the Norwegian side.
Huitfeldt says that she has informed the Foreign Minister that the Labor Party is fully behind her handling of this matter.
– We must be prepared for more such attacks in the future.
– Is it important that we say and point to Russia?
– Yes of course. It has been our attitude towards Russia all along that we say clearly when they break the rules of the game. This is stressful for our relationship with Russia. We see a more assertive Russia. We must not be naive and react consistently.
Neither Siv Jensen nor Trygve Slagsvold Vedum want to comment.
Russia is behind it
The Russians respond
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs went out with its Russia proposal just before 5 pm on Tuesday afternoon. About three hours later answers the Russian embassy in Oslo, which calls the accusations a serious, deliberate provocation and destructive bilateral relations.
In advance, the head of the International Committee of the Russian Federation, Konstantin Kosachev, has spoken to TASS:
– As always, the accusations are made without bothering with documentation and any kind of discussion about the incidents at expert level, says Konstantin Kosachev.
Leonid Slutsky, who is a member of the same committee, also takes a hard line on the accusations in an interview with TASS.
– It’s a complete nonsense ball. Strong evidence is needed for such statements, he says and claims that this is not the first time Norway “has become a hostage to the anti-Russian hysteria.”
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