Latest in Russia and Eastern Europe
Editor’s note: This piece has been expanded to address the possibility that the United States views the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as a multilateral, not bilateral, treaty.
President Trump announced on Oct. 20 that the United States would pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a 1987 bilateral agreement prohibiting the United States and Russia from possessing, producing or test-flying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers and their launchers.
The Justice Department announced on Oct. 5 the indictment of seven officers of the Russian Military Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, on charges of computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Here are three quick takeaways.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment of seven officers in the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, on charges of computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. The charges concern a disinformation operation against international anti-doping agencies in the wake of news reports on the Russian government’s systematic doping of the country’s athletes.
In the summer of 2016, a Facebook group called “Secure Borders” began fanning the flames of rumors that a young girl had been raped at knifepoint by Syrian refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho. The group accused government officials, including the prosecutor and judge in the case, of conspiring to protect the immigrant community by covering-up the true nature of the crime.
A colleague and I recently published an op-ed in Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s leading daily newspapers, about Russia’s attempts to influence elections in democratic countries. Among the Russian tactics we described was the use of “troll factories” to distribute misinformation. So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised when we were attacked online, probably by Russian trolls, after our article posted.
On Monday, the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint and supporting affidavit against Mariia Butina, a Russian national, for conspiring to act as a foreign agent in violation of
Internet censors have a new strategy in their bid to block applications and websites: pressuring the large cloud providers that host them. These providers have concerns that are much broader than the targets of censorship efforts, so they have the choice of either standing up to the censors or capitulating in order to maximize their business. Today’s internet largely reflects the dominance of a handful of companies behind the cloud services, search engines and mobile platforms that underpin the technology landscape.
On May 23, two distinguished Queen’s Counsel squared off before a Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in a rare inter-state case on the court’s docket, Georgia v. Russia (II).
The Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against the Russian Federation will run aground, as Ingrid Wuerth notes, unless the DNC can find a way around Russia’s immunity in American courts.