“Collective West” waging large-scale cyberattack, claims Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Russia is launching about 40 missiles into Ukraine every day 

Geneva/Moscow/Kyiv/Beijing/The Hague: The Netherlands today declared 17 diplomats from the Russian Embassy in The Hague personae non grata, and Russia responded by saying it will announce retaliatory measures.  Moscow claimed “this unfriendly measure shows that The Hague in not interested in the least in maintaining normal diplomatic communication channels with Russia.

“It is consistent with the destructive policy of the Dutch authorities, who over many years, against common sense, have systematically been destroying bilateral relations with Russia, having severed political contacts and acting as an initiator of the unprecedented sanctions pressure on our country. This time the Dutch have outdone themselves in their effort to hit the Russian Embassy harder. The responsibility for the implications of this arbitrary behaviour lies in full with the Dutch authorities, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

Russia also accused the United States-led West of resorting to “blackmail, ultimatums and threats” to persuade countries in all regions to denounce Russia when they realised that their plans to establish a “bridgehead” in Ukraine had been thwarted.

“They used their influence to gain unilateral advantages in various parts of the world. They are using openly imperialist and neocolonial methods to force everyone to obey Western orders and to reinstate what was called a unipolar world,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Lebanese Democratic Party Chairman Talal Arslan in Moscow today.

“We always advocate cooperation and dialogue. However, it is necessary to do this solely on the basis of equality, mutual respect and a search for a balance of interests,” Lavrov said. He added: “We value the principled position of our many friends in all countries that, first of all, refuse to join illegitimate and unilateral Western sanctions against the Russian Federation and, second, which comprehend current developments in the context of common trends in the future development of global relations.”

Russia today accused the “collective West” – the United States and its satellites – of waging a large-scale cyberattack against Russia.  It claimed that advanced information and communication technologies were being used “almost every day” to attack government agencies, media outlets, critical infrastructure and vital facilities.

“The Kiev [Kyiv] regime has announced international recruitment of anti-Russia IT professionals into “offensive cyber forces.” Daily malicious attacks against Russia number hundreds of thousands,” Moscow said.

Moscow minced no words to warn, “Nobody must have any doubt that the cyber aggression being waged against Russia will have dramatic consequences for its inspirers and operators. The sources of these attacks will be identified, and the culprits will inevitably be called to account for their activities in accordance with the law.”

According to a Russian foreign ministry statement today, sophisticated cyber technologies were being used to capture the personal data of Russian citizens. “A lot of fake news is posted online to disorient and demoralise Russian society, discredit the actions of the Russian Armed Forces and government agencies, encourage unlawful activities of the public, complicate the operation of our industrial sectors and sow fear and instability in the country. The unprecedented scale of these attacks and their close coordination clearly indicate that the cyberwar waged against Russia by Ukrainian special ICT operations centres trained by US and other NATO experts is being reinforced with anonymous hackers and trolls acting on orders from Kiev (Kyiv)regime’s Western mentors. In fact, this cyberwar is being waged by an army of cyber mercenaries who have been given concrete combat tasks that often border on terrorism,” the statement said.

Russia said it will “redouble” its efforts to promote relevant initiatives to repel such attacks at international venues, “first of all at the UN [United Nations]”. It stated, “Work will continue to strengthen the legal protection of Russian individuals and legal entities from malicious foreign cyber activities.”

Moscow today claimed that at present, the Russian armed forces’ special military operation, “launched to defend the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR)  and to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine”, was being carried out in Ukraine.

“According to the country’s leadership, it proceeds in strict accordance with the plan. Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasised that its goals and objectives would be fulfilled,” Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

Meanwhile, China today advised both Russia and Ukraine that to address the current crisis, both should bear in mind the realities on the ground and attach importance to legitimate security concerns. It stated that expanding the conflict and escalating sanctions incessantly will only further complicate the issue and make the whole world pay a dearer price.

Stating that China was ready to work with the international community to make an effort for easing the situation, resolving the crisis and rebuild peace, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing today that under the current circumstances, all parties should encourage and support Russia and Ukraine in keeping the talks going to bring about peaceful outcomes.

Ukraine, meanwhile, claimed Russia was deliberately using the Chornobyl zone to transport and stockpile ammunition. “The activities of the occupying forces at any time could lead to the detonation of ammunition, damage to the Shelter and radiation contamination of the area where hundreds of millions of Europeans live,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, stated today.

Also read: Burning woodland in Chornobyl causing radioactive air pollution: Ukraine

So far, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has reported a total of 1,179 deaths including those of  55 children, and a total of 1,860 injuries including those to 74 children in Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on February 24, 2022. Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office though claimed today that since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 144 children had been killed and more than 220 got injured. 

However, Russia today referred to certain video clips on the internet showing how fighters from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) humiliate Russian Prisoners Of War and they record their murder. Moscow mocked the defenders of human rights in the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE ODIHR) for remaining silent. “They don’t react in any way to these war crimes and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law. Russophobia blinds them. The same is true of high-ranking EU officials. They do not want to “offend” their underlings in Kiev [Kyiv]. Nobody in Strasbourg has raised the issue of expelling Ukraine from the Council of Europe even though there are plenty of reasons to do so. ODIHR Director Matteo Mecacci is focusing his anger on Russia alone. Moral and ethical principles and political integrity have been lost. What can we discuss with these institutions? This silence means complicity in the committed atrocities. Complicity is also a crime,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova, said in Moscow today.

She said the neo-Nazis’ treatment of captured Russians and DPR and LPR citizens horrified the world. So much for modern democracies. The other day, the world shuddered from seeing the harrowing footage of the atrocities committed by Ukrainian militants, who not only abuse Russian prisoners of war but also reveal their ferocious nature. They shoot them in the legs and then leave them without medical help. This is savage cruelty bordering on sadism. The Ukrainian militants seem to enjoy this. All war crimes are recorded, and the perpetrators will be held accountable.

Don’t even try to pretend that what every one has seen never happened. I have read numerous materials posted by bloggers and journalists. They say that war is “dehumanising.” No. These extremists and militants have long been dehumanised. This process and the fact that it is supported by the West (morally, politically, financially and with weapons) have led to the situation at hand. They have been doing exactly that for eight years in Donetsk and Lugansk. They buried people alive, killed children, and held civilians in basements. The militias who fell into their “paws” learned firsthand about the sadism and cannibal cruelty of Ukrainian nationalist battalions. They were mistreated not because they participated in hostilities, they got it in retaliation for not surrendering to the nationalist ideology and not swearing allegiance to those who were considered enemies as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal verdicts. They did not bow to evil and upheld everything that has always been considered (and included on paper in legal acts) the correct, righteous and dignified thing to do.

The situation with four Russian Rosatom subsidiary employees who delivered special cargo to the Rovno NPP under contract is egregious. For more than a month now, the Ukrainian authorities have kept them locked in a railway car at the station. We demand that the Ukrainian side release our citizens and ensure their safe return home. We call on the IAEA to assist us in this matter.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy though accused Russia of launching about 40 missiles into Ukraine every day. “It has been more than 1370 missiles since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” he claimed.

Today a fuel depot was destroyed in a Russian missile attack on the city of Starokostiantyniv, Mayor Mykola Melnychuk informed.

A rocket attack on Mykolaiv regional building administration today killed 7 while 22 victims were rescued alive from the rubble, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. The rescuers there continued to dismantle blockages of the building of the regional administration. The mayor of Mykolaiv Sergey Senkevich said there was no military in the building and the probable reason for the missile attack was to kill the head of administration, Vitaly Kim.

Lyudmyla Denisova, Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine, claimed that since the invasion, Russia had forcibly deported more than 500,000 Ukrainians to its territory. “The Russians seize documents and telephones from them,” he said. The Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine, Lyudmyla Denisova, claimed Russians were “massively taking civilians hostage in the occupied territories of Ukraine”. He said in the Kherson region, the occupiers took hostage Oleksiy Konovalov, a deputy of the Henichesk City Council, and Oleh Yakhnienko, the head of the Mylivka Territorial Community. Journalist Iryna Dubchenko was also abducted. The Mariupol City Council further claimed that today Russian forces kidnapped medical personnel and patients of a maternity hospital in Mariupol.

Russia though today claimed that its military was doing “everything possible” to avoid civilian casualties. “They do not attack civilian targets, and they open humanitarian corridors daily to help evacuate civilians from harm’s way. Since the beginning of the operation, as of March 28, 469,000 people, including 97,000 children, have been evacuated from Ukraine, the DPR and the LPR. As many as 9,500 temporary refugee accommodation centres are operational in Russia. Russia is supplying humanitarian aid, essential supplies, medications and food to the republics of Donbass and Ukraine. Russia has delivered over 5,000 tonnes of humanitarian cargo since March 2,” Zakharova claimed.

The Russian foreign office spokesperson said that despite the fact that people in Ukraine need urgent humanitarian assistance, the Western countries were increasing supplies of all types of weapons to Ukraine, including small arms, anti-tank guided missiles, anti-tank missile systems, man-portable air defence systems, ammunition and equipment. “The United States is especially good at pouring billions of dollars into it. Poland acts as a transit point. Armed Ukrainian units are shelling rural and urban communities and killing civilians with Western weapons. Donetsk, Makeyevka, Gorlovka, Yasinovataya, and Dokuchayevsk as well as other towns in Donbass are regularly shelled by the Ukrainian military with heavy weapons, including the Tochka-U missile system. However, the West prefers not to see this,” she claimed.

Zakharova further stressed that the Ukrainian “neo-Nazis’ treatment of civilians remains terrifying. People are taken hostage, used as human shields, and are not allowed to leave combat zones”.

She referred to the recent reports that the Crimean Tatars living in the liberated Kherson region were being threatened by radicals from the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People. “They force these people to stage anti-Russia rallies and threaten to kill their relatives, including children, who remain in the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” she said.

Reiterating that Ukrainian embassies abroad continue to recruit volunteers and mercenaries to participate in the hostilities, Zakharova accused the authorities of the countries where this recruitment is carried out, of turning a blind eye to the violation of international standards, including Article 41 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations which says that using diplomatic missions for purposes incompatible with their function is illegal. 

Russia also referred to the peace talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations that started on February 28, 2022 and have been ongoing for a month now. The agenda includes Ukraine’s permanent neutral and non-aligned status and security guarantees, its demilitarisation, denazification, the recognition of modern territorial realities, and restoration of the status of the Russian language and the rights of its Russian-speaking citizens.

“In other words, we are talking about Ukraine returning to its original statehood as enshrined in the 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty. We hope that during the next round of talks in Istanbul the Ukrainian delegation will be constructive in its approach,” Zakharova said. She added: “Over the past eight years, the people of Donbass have been affected by shelling, blockades and genocide, and the people of Ukraine have suffered from discrimination and abuse on the part of the nationalist regime. What Ukraine needs today is not a supply of Western weapons, but humanitarian aid and progress in the talks in order to achieve peace and stability and put an end to this years-long inferno. Pretending that eight previous years didn’t exist is not going to work for anyone.”

– global bihari bureau