Berlin, furious with the Kremlin games, is preparing an answer: that would be a clear signal to others.

According to politico.eu, the sanctions will be introduced later this year after the German government said it “has evidence” linking members of a group of Russian programmers to a cyber attack on the Bundestag in 2015.

Diplomats met in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss piracy in the Bundestag systems and whether they should react by applying a new cyber sanctions regime.

European countries have been considering imposing sanctions on foreign citizens and organizations involved in online piracy for several months, but the negotiations took place in secret, and governments considered possible options. Things changed when German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had previously been unwilling to blame Russia for the robbery, said last month that Berlin could not “simply ignore” the “scandalous” attack, and her government demanded a response from the European Union.

“It is a violation of German sovereignty. This is a very serious matter, for what we are pointing out,” said Chris Painter, a former US cybersecurity diplomat during the term of US President Barack Obama.

Berlin’s backing of the sanctions is likely to convince other EU countries to move forward, experts say.

Capitals “are likely to want to take this opportunity to demonstrate that such attacks against any member are serious enough to warrant sanctions,” said Patrick Pawlak, head of the analytical center at the EU Security Studies Council. “That would be a clear signal for others to stay further away from our political institutions.”

Lines drawn in Berlin

The primary target of Berlin’s outrage has been 29-year-old constipated programmer Dmitry Badin, who is also on the list of wanted people by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. USA For theft during the 2016 presidential election.

In a statement issued last week, the German Foreign Ministry said Badin was suspected of having contributed to the attack on the Bundestag, and that German prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant against him.

“There is strong evidence that he was a Russian military intelligence officer GRU at the time of the attack,” said a ministry spokesman. The GRU intelligence service also owns the infamous group of hackers, known by various names: APT28, Sofacy and Fancy Bear, who are suspected of being Badin.

After the attack in May 2015, the German parliament’s computer screens were turned off, and then the parliament had to restore the entire security system from scratch. Although it is not yet clear what information has been lost, the audacity of such an attack and the symbolism of the object of the attack have become a high-profile subject in Germany.

“This is something that is very expensive for Merkel,” said Julia Schuetze, a researcher at the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin. “It has affected her and other members of parliament.”

Berlin’s efforts to seek redress stem from years of outrage over Russian piracy, with intelligence agencies and cyber security companies increasingly linking serious attacks on the Kremlin.

In February, a group of European countries and the Five Eyes intelligence community condemned Russia’s intelligence service for “completely unacceptable” cyberattacks on Georgia’s networks of parliament, courts and other organizations.

In the same month, French President Emmanuel Macron told a crowd of security officials in Munich that Russia “will continue to be a country trying to interfere” in the European elections, so EU countries “must react quickly. “and” agree sanctions “.

Back in 2018, Western governments criticized Russia for a series of high-profile cyberattacks, including in the Netherlands against the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. At the time, the United Kingdom and the United States had declared that Moscow was “almost certainly responsible” for the global NotPetya outbreak, which required billions of damages.

Previous sanctions have been stopped by the pandemic

Germany’s efforts to stimulate a European response are the first serious test of the bloc’s sanctions regime, which came into effect last May. So-called restrictive measures, such as the asset freeze and the travel ban, require the unanimous approval of all EU members, which is a serious hurdle that must be overcome.

Rumors that new sanctions could be imposed on a group of Russian hackers began to spread a few months ago, and before the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, diplomats had already reached an agreement on sanctions against Russian and Chinese entities, Bloomberg reported.

But the process was interrupted by a pandemic, POLITICO said three related diplomats. Physical gatherings were banned and all political energy went to fight the virus.

German diplomats were due to present their proposed sanctions against thieves in the Bundestag systems during a meeting on Wednesday, which was the first live meeting since the restrictions were introduced in March.

A German Foreign Ministry official said “the federal government is firmly committed to the EU’s cyber sanctions regime.” … Cyber ​​attacks must be held accountable. We believe this evidence is sufficient, so we now propose to take it. “

Negotiations are expected to take several weeks, with one group of diplomats working at the political level and another preparing drafts of legal texts together with the EU diplomatic service.

It is still unclear whether diplomats will seek to impose sanctions only on those identified by Germany as being responsible for the Bundestag attack, or whether they will agree to sanctions against a larger entity, such as the GRU agency’s Fancy Bear unit or the agency as a whole.

In January last year, the EU had already added the GRU chief and his deputy to the sanctions list for trying to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia in Salisbury, Britain.

The German foreign ministry official said the ministry’s proposal “includes, but is not limited to, Dmitry Badin,” adding that “we cannot provide further details until delicate negotiations take place.”

Moscow denies Berlin’s accusations

Germany’s statements about Russia’s “programmer attacks” against the Bundestag are absurd, and Moscow categorically denies such allegations, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.

“We categorically deny the unfounded accusations made by Germany against Russia about the involvement of Russian state structures in the attack on the German Bundestag in 2015.” This is unwarranted speculation about Russia’s alleged footprint, “he said during a virtual press conference.

Ms. Zakharova stressed that since 2015, Berlin had not provided any evidence that Russia had contributed to those attacks and was unable to explain the basis for these allegations.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry called the statements “absurd” and “meaningless”.

According to her, Moscow urges Berlin to “refrain from further escalation of the situation and confrontational rhetoric.”

“We propose to end the threats leading to a standstill and bring the Russia-Germany dialogue on cyber security to the realm of practical cooperation and real issues,” said Zacharova.

Last week, Berlin announced that it would ask European Union institutions to impose sanctions on Russians responsible for a cyber attack on the Bundestag five years ago.

German police authorities believe that Dmitry Badin, a suspected member of the APT28 program team, also known as Sofacy, contributed to the 2015 attack on the Bundestag. Berlin claims that this Russian citizen complied with the orders of the country’s military intelligence agency GRU.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last month that she had been attacked by Russian programmers, saying she had concrete evidence of “scandalous” attempts to spy on her. He also hinted at the possibility of announcing sanctions.