From the editor
This weekend could be crucial for the future of Belarus as on Sunday an ultimatum from exiled likely election winner Svetlana Tikhanouskaya for Alexander Lukashenko to resign expires. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, came to Minsk yesterday for talks with Lukashenko. This followed a report on Russia’s pro-Kremlin NTV channel in which the presenter accused Lukashenko of failing to keep promises on debt repayments and constitutional reforms, and suggested the prospect of a Kyrgyzstan-style change of government if the situation persists.
Another Belarusian opposition leader, Pavel Latushko, who fled to Poland after being threatened with prosecution, has said that there is an action plan if Lukashenko doesn’t step down. Latushko is currently self-isolating with coronavirus, but has promised to continue the fight as far as possible. Tikhanouskaya had said protesters would shut the country down with strikes if Lukashenko refuses to go.
Vladimir Putin has seen that Russians were not inspired to emulate protesters in Kyrgyzstan, who succeeded in replacing President Sooronbay Jeenbekov with Sadyr Japarov, and he might well think that similar events in Belarus will also fail to connect with all but a few. He wants protests to end one way or another and Belarus to disappear from the headlines, and Naryshkin may have given Lukashenko an ultimatum of his own. We can expect more drama on the streets of Minsk and other cities before these tumultuous events culminate.
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Coronavirus strains healthcare system
Russia’s hospitals are struggling to cope with the second wave of coronavirus, and 13 Covid patients at a hospital in Rostov-on-Don reportedly died because of a shortage of oxygen supplies. The response of authorities was to deny the shortage and announce an investigation into who leaked the story. A video on social media also showed a hospital in Barnaul with deceased patients in black bin bags lining a corridor in the basement.
Yelena Kozhukhova, the deputy mayor of Rostov-on-Don, denied there was a shortage of oxygen at the hospital where 13 Covid patients on ventilators died
Russia reported a record number of new coronavirus cases today, 17,340, and 283 more deaths. The largest number of cases were in Moscow, with 5,478. St. Petersburg reported 710 new cases and Moscow Oblast reported 472. Over 25,000 people are officially recorded as having died from coronavirus in Russia during the pandemic.
The mayor of Yalta, occupied Crimea, Ivan Imgrunt, has died from coronavirus at the age of 59. Two more regional heads have also said that they have been infected: the head of the Republic of Khakasia, Valentin Konovalov, and Kemerovo Oblast Governo Sergei Tsivilev. Pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergei Markov surprised a presenter on Ekho Moskvy radio station when he said that he had flown home from a conference in Yalta after experiencing coronavirus symptoms, and subsequently tested positive. “The plane was full, unfortunately,” Markov added.
Meanwhile Putin’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov celebrated his 53rd birthday with a raucous celebrity-studded party that involved dancing and hugging. Peskov was hospitalised with coronavirus in May.
United States charges six GRU officers for hacking
The US Department of Justice has charged six Russian GRU officers in connection with malware attacks and attempts to disrupt the 2017 French elections and 2018 Winter Olympics. “These GRU hackers and their co-conspirators engaged in computer intrusions and attacks intended to support Russian government efforts to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize: (1) Ukraine; (2) Georgia; (3) elections in France; (4) efforts to hold Russia accountable for its use of a weapons-grade nerve agent, Novichok, on foreign soil; and (5) the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games after Russian athletes were banned from participating under their nation’s flag, as a consequence of Russian government-sponsored doping effort,” the department said in a press release.
“Their computer attacks used some of the world’s most destructive malware to date, including: KillDisk and Industroyer, which each caused blackouts in Ukraine; NotPetya, which caused nearly $1 billion in losses to the three victims identified in the indictment alone; and Olympic Destroyer, which disrupted thousands of computers used to support the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The indictment charges the defendants with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and false registration of a domain name,” the department continued.
April 2018 spearphishing campaigns by the group targeted investigations by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory into the Novichok attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. “No country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and to satisfy fits of spite,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “Today the department has charged these Russian officers with conducting the most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group, including by unleashing the NotPetya malware. No nation will recapture greatness while behaving in this way.”
The indicted suspects were named as Yuri Andrienko, Sergei Detistov, Pavel Frolov, Anatoly Kovalev, Artem Ochichenko and Petr Pliskin. Kovalev was previously charged with conspiring to gain unauthorised access into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the administration of the 2016 US elections.
EU sanctions GRU head
The EU has sanctioned GRU chief Igor Kostyukov and GRU officer Dmitri Badin over cyber attacks on the German parliament that took place in April and May 2015, and in Kostyukov’s case, also for the attempted hacking of the OPCW in the Netherlands in April 2018. The GRU unit known as “Fancy Bear” has also been sanctioned. “The cyber-attack against the German federal parliament targeted the parliament’s information system and affected its operation for several days. A significant amount of data was stolen and email accounts of several MPs as well as of Chancellor Angela Merkel were affected,” the EU said in its official journal.