After last year’s presidential election in the United States, Russia is trying to influence the parliamentary elections in Germany, which will be held this fall. The goal of President Putin is to prevent the re-election of Chancellor Merkel for a fourth term and make a split in the camp of the Western countries.
15 March the US Department of justice officially accused two employees of FSB and two hackers of Russian origin in the fact that they hacked into Yahoo and got access to the 500 million mailboxes. The point is that the government of Russia appealed to the Russian hackers that they hacked into the servers of Yahoo, and was allowed to cash in on the users of this company. Instead, the hackers gathered the information that the Russian authorities considered it important.
On 17 March The British Financial Times published an article entitled “the Government of the Russian Federation endorses hacking and activates a criminal group”. This article further explains how in recent years the Kremlin has used the Russian criminal groups in order to carry out cyberattacks on the U.S. and European governments and companies.
The newspaper stresses that the reason why the Russian government makes use of local criminal groups is that, first, victims find it difficult to understand who inflicted the blow, and secondly, it’s cheap and not limited by any boundaries. Since Soviet times Russia has a rich history of cooperation with various criminal groups and nationalist organizations to suppress aggressive forces.
In particular, the importance of the cooperation with similar organizations increased after the collapse of the USSR. Now it has spread to the world wide web.
It is known that during last year’s election campaign in the United States, the server of the democratic headquarters was attacked by a group of hackers АРТ28, which was commissioned by the Russian government and produced hard-hitting information about Hillary Clinton.
This group is also known for its attack on the servers of the German Parliament.
Fears are growing that Russia will try to intervene in European elections. January 5, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “the World should be alerted to the fact that Russia intervened in the election of the President of the United States”. She also quoted the head of the CIA John Brennan (John Brennan), who said: “the US must understand what happened during the presidential election. It is important to warn other countries. Particularly concerned about Russia’s intervention in the parliamentary elections in Germany”.
TV is for brainwashing
On 30 January The Financial Times published an article entitled “Germany — the next target of Russia?”. In it, she stressed that Russia is easier to affect Germany than in the United States.
First, after the fall of the Berlin wall in Germany moved about three million Russian of German origin. They enjoyed the support of the German authorities and economic circles and initially passed to Russia democratic values. “The goal was to help transform Russia into a democratic state”. However, in recent years, their organization has changed in an attempt to bring German policies towards Russia.
Second, the country is close from a geographical point of view. Unlike the USA this allows to propagate in different directions. A few years ago the Russian government created in Germany TV channel in German language news site and social network.
On the one hand, criticized the migration policy of Chancellor Merkel, and with another — raises the problem of migrants and fueled isolationism. Transmitted news and comments with distorted facts.
The article notes that Russia’s actions are mostly focused on immigrants from East Germany, which is alien to democratic values. They are the reason that the German far-right party “Alternative for Germany” has strengthened its position.
Russia intervenes in Western elections, as President Vladimir Putin seeks to split the Western camp, to destroy the world order established after the fall of the Berlin wall, and to restore the sphere of influence of the USSR.
Therefore, the Kremlin is important to remove from power those politicians who see Russia negatively. In particular, it is necessary to prevent the fourth re-elected Merkel, who initiated anti-Russian sanctions imposed by Europe after the annexation of Crimea.
16 January press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, said: “the Russian authorities have nothing to do with illegal acts in cyberspace,” but hardly anybody believes it.
A rating of Chancellor Merkel, which took 1.1 million refugees fell. However, it is possible to rely on people to protect democracy and globalization based on the principle of free trade. Elections in the German Parliament, which will be held this fall, will show whether the West is to maintain the existing order.
