Germany blames Russia for cyberattack on air safety and election interference
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Germany said it summoned Russian ambassador Sergei Nechaev over two Russian cyberoperations.
PHOTO: AFP
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BERLIN – Germany said on Dec 12 that it had identified two Russian cyberoperations targeting air traffic control and February’s general election, and that it had summoned the Russian ambassador.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “We can now clearly attribute the cyberattack against German air safety in August 2024 to the hacker collective APT28, also known as Fancy Bear.”
Speaking at a press conference, he added: “Second, we can now state definitively that Russia, through the Storm 1516 campaign, sought to influence and destabilise the most recent federal election.”
The Russian Embassy in Berlin could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman said Germany “would take a series of countermeasures to make Russia pay a price for its hybrid actions, in close coordination with our European partners”.
Berlin would support “new individual sanctions against hybrid actors on a European level”, he said, without providing further details.
Governments across Europe are on high alert over alleged Russian espionage, drone surveillance and sabotage activities, as well as cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns.
Germany has been Ukraine’s second-biggest supplier of aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022
