The Russian Embassy in Washington demanded an explanation from the United States about the cyber attacks that were committed on the Central Election Commission (CEC) during the last State Duma elections. This was reported on the page of the diplomatic mission on Facebook.
According to the embassy, about half of the attacks were recorded from the territory of the United States. “The purpose of such hacks is to discredit our electoral system. I would like to receive exhaustive explanations on this matter from the American side,” the diplomatic mission said.
Mikhail Oseevsky, President of Rostelecom, confirmed the attacks on online voting systems and election-related portals. In particular, they involved infected devices from India, Indonesia, Brazil, Ukraine, Iran, Thailand, Bangladesh, China, Russia, Germany, Vietnam, Lithuania. The most large-scale cyberattack was recorded on September 18 and lasted for 5 hours and 32 minutes.
Later, the Minister of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Communications Maksut Shadayev said that half of the attacks were carried out from IP addresses registered in the United States, other quarter-from addresses in Germany.
Speaker Valentina Matvienko warned that Russia would appeal to those countries from whose territory cyberattacks were launched, and did not rule out the possible imposition of sanctions against these states.
It is worth noting that the head of the press service of the State Department, Ned Price, on Monday made the statement that the elections to the State Duma were held in “non-free and non-transparent” conditions. According to him, “the use by the Russian authorities of laws on “extremist organizations”, “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” significantly limited political pluralism and prevented the Russian people from exercising their civil and political rights.”
The Russian side called the accusations unfounded. The embassy stressed that the vote was held in full compliance with Russian law and international law, and the shortcomings did not affect its overall course.
