The cyber attack on Ukraine is ‘part of the Russian playbook’, says the US ambassador to the United States

A US official said a major cyber attack on Ukraine on Friday was “a tried and true part of the Russian sports book”, while Washington added warnings that Moscow was preparing for a neighbor’s attack.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Victoria Nuland, the US Secretary of State for Political Affairs, stopped blaming Russia for the cyber-attack, which has targeted several Ukrainian government websites. But he said the session is part of a series of well-known and disturbing developments in Moscow.

“I’m not ready to share anything about the giveaway right now. I can only say that this is the most experimental and authentic part of the Russian sports book, as you know, all over the world,” Nuland said.

“In the past, Russian workers have done this in order to undermine governments, to test their ability, to undermine the confidence of their rival governments. Then anything is possible here,” he added.

Nuland’s comments came a day after the White House issued a series of warnings that Russia was preparing for war in Ukraine. These include a Ask that Moscow intends to make a war effort by appointing workers in eastern Ukraine to engage in “false flag-shooting” activities that could “destroy Russian weapons”.

The statement came at the end of the discussion week between the US, Nato and Russian officials to resolve the crisis, which was declared “unsuccessful” by Moscow, sparking fears that an attack should take place.

The US has said that if Russia invades Ukraine, it will face significant reprisals from the United States and its European allies, including economic and economic sanctions on a much larger scale than Moscow took over Crimea in 2014.

Biden officials say the US is already ready to impose sanctions if necessary, and the amount depends on Russia’s performance.

“I don’t see 18 different scenarios. . . “I would just say that our commitment and the dialogue we have with our allies is causing a lot of pain, if Russia does this in any way,” Nuland said.

However, he added that in the US view, the door to the embassy is still open, and Washington is working to write a response to Russian officials.

“We want to keep talking,” Nuland said. “We believe that this should be done through interaction – for example, they should have grievances but we are also concerned.”

The United States has so far offered to discuss arms controls and sanctions in the region but has rejected Russia’s request to withdraw foreign troops or bar them from joining Nato.

“We hope we can more and more and move forward in some areas of negotiation,” Nuland said. “We hope and hope that with some ideas we put on the table, Moscow will remain on the table, but that is Putin’s decision.”

“All we have done so far is listening to each other,” he added. “We have not started a dialogue on what we should be trying to achieve, especially if they want the agreements to be mutually exclusive. So we would need more time.”

Nuland, who served as head of state of Europe at the time of Barack Obama’s presidency, sought to answer that some European countries would reject harsh sanctions because of economic and political problems, saying talks with allies were “too heavy and too crowded. ”And the US had a“ very good picture of what we can do ”.

“Remember that this is violent in Europe, and this is changing the map of Europe. So you know, none of us want to ask our citizens or our companies to volunteer, but sometimes national and international security needs this,” he said. .

Nuland said the US, however, is trying to “understand” what European countries view sanctions, “creating a package that shares as much pressure as possible and what people are willing to do”. He further added that US and European sanctions would not be “the same”.

“Sometimes there are things that Europe can do that we struggle with and sometimes it is a different way,” he said.