London accused Moscow of Thursday of wanting to steal research on a Covid-19 vaccine. According to the British government agency responsible for cybersecurity, a group of Russian hackers have attacked British, Canadian and American organizations to steal their research into the development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV2.

"The threatening group known as APT29" or the "Dukes" or "Cozy Bear", "almost certainly operates within the framework of the Russian intelligence services," the National Cyber ​​Security Center said in a statement ( NCSC), adding that his American and Canadian counterparts had reached the same conclusion.

Deeming "totally unacceptable that Russian intelligence services target those working to fight the coronavirus pandemic", British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab warned that those who carry out such attacks will sooner or later have to "be held to account" .

"While some are recklessly chasing after their selfish interests, the United Kingdom and its allies are continuing their hard work to find a vaccine and protect global health," he said in a statement.

Interference in elections?

This accusation comes in a dark sky between London and Moscow, where already hangs the shadow of suspicions of Russian interference in the British legislative campaigns of last December, which saw the triumph of the Conservatives of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the referendum of 2016 which resulted in Brexit.

The British government believes that it is "almost certain" that "Russian actors" sought to disrupt the legislative elections of December 12 by circulating during the campaign documents on a possible trade agreement between London and Washington after Brexit. An investigation was then launched to try to identify the source of the leak of these documents, which had been published on the social network Reddit.

"Based on a comprehensive analysis, the government has concluded that it is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 parliamentary elections by amplifying the online dissemination of illegally obtained government documents" said Foreign Minister Dominic Raab in a written statement to Parliament.

Labor opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had to leave Labor after his debacle, brandished 450 pages of documents during the campaign that he said proved the government wanted to "sell" British health care to the Americans (NHS), one of the key issues in the ballot. Believing that the leak "was part of a campaign identified as coming from Russia", the social network Reddit had closed 61 suspicious accounts. Jeremy Corbyn had for his part qualified as "conspiracy theory" the assertions on the Russian origin of the leak of these documents.

The United Kingdom is also waiting in the coming days for the publication of a sensitive report on other possible Russian interference, in particular on the campaign for the 2016 referendum that led to Brexit.

In response, the Kremlin denied on Thursday any interference whatsoever in the 2019 British elections or concerning an attempt to steal ongoing research into a vaccine against the new coronavirus. "We reject these accusations as well as the new baseless allegations of interference in the 2019 elections," said Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Russian presidency, quoted by the state-run news agency Tass.

Relations between London and Moscow are at their lowest since the poisoning on British soil of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal, in the city of Salisbury (south-west). 

With AFP

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