Tag Archives: Russian

Russian warship armed with supersonic missiles enters the Mediterranean Sea after Iran’s attack

Russian-warship

Important Takeaways:

  • Russia has called for restraint from both Iran and Israel as a wider war in the Middle East becomes a real possibility.
  • Russia has sent a navy frigate, Marshal Shaposhnikov, armed with Kinzhal supersonic missiles into the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal just hours after Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones.
  • The Kremlin confirmed the ship’s presence in the area, adding that it will continue performing the tasks assigned to it under the expedition plan.
  • Dmitry Peskov said: “Right now it is very important for everyone to maintain restraint in order not to lead to a complete destabilization of the situation in the region, which does not exactly shine with stability and predictability.”

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Gordon Chang points out what it will mean if China and Russia build a base on the moon

TOPSHOT-CHINA-SPACE-SATELLITE-WIRELESS

Important Takeaways:

  • When the Moon Turns Red: China’s Plan to Annex Space
  • In 2021, Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency and the China National Space Administration agreed to build a shared moon base, to be named the International Lunar Research Station.
  • “Chinese control of the moon would confer control of Cis-Lunar space, the portion of space between the Earth and the moon. Control of Cis-Lunar space would give a country the ability to shoot down or otherwise disable deep-space satellites, which are essential for, among other things, the early warning of ballistic missile attacks.” — Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, to the author, March 2014.
  • The free world should view Chinese and Russian progress with alarm. China’s regime, for instance, has made it clear it intends to annex space.
  • Ye Peijian made it clear that Beijing intends to exclude others from the moon, among other places, if it is in a position to do so.
  • The American-led Artemis program also contemplates a base at the South Pole. NASA, unfortunately, has been pushing back Artemis timetables.
  • Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits “national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” but when has a treaty obligation ever stopped the People’s Republic from doing whatever it wants?

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Space Force official warns China and Russia deploying weaponized satellites to target US satellites like GPS

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • China, Russia deploying space weapons to attack U.S. satellites, warns Space Force chief
  • China’s military has deployed 347 satellites, including 35 launched in the past six months, to target U.S. forces in a future conflict, the commander of the Space Force told a Senate hearing
  • Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said Russia is also testing and deploying orbital anti-satellite weapons, extensive cyber capabilities and land-based anti-satellite missiles, electronic jammers and lasers.
  • The Chinese military also has several types of ground-launched missiles capable of hitting orbiting satellites.
  • A third space weapon of the Chinese is orbiting satellites that can grab and crush vulnerable craft from hostile nations.
  • China’s more advanced space warfare weapons pose “the most immediate threat” to attacks in space
  • Both “are intent on targeting perceived U.S. vulnerabilities and eliminating American advantage in the space domain,” the four-star general told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces hearing Tuesday

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Kremlin Media personalities and pundits pressure Putin to save face and become more aggressive

Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

Important Takeaways:

  • Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine
  • Russian nationalist commentators and state media’s war correspondents lauded Monday’s attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive
  • Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday’s missile strikes in order to win the war now
  • “This is one of those cases when the country needs to show we can hit back,” wrote Alexander Kots, a war correspondent for Russia’s popular pro-Kremlin tabloid, Komsomolskaya Pravda.
  • Political analyst Stanovaya noted in a Telegram post Monday that “powerful pressures” have been on Putin “to move onto aggressive actions, massive bombings” and that prompted him to act.

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U.S. charges Ukrainian, Russian, over cyberattack, seizes $6 million in ransom payments

By Mark Hosenball and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department has charged a suspect from Ukraine and a Russian national over a July ransomware attack on an American company, according to indictments made in court filings on Monday, with CNN reporting the United States has seized $6 million in ransom payments.

Yaroslav Vasinskyi, a Ukrainian national arrested in Poland last month, will face U.S. charges for deploying ransomware known as REvil, which has been used in hacks that have cost U.S. firms millions of dollars, the court filing showed.

Vasinskyi conducted a ransomware attack over the July 4 weekend on Florida-based software firm Kaseya that infected up to 1,500 businesses around the world, according to the charges filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Vasinskyi and another alleged REvil operative, Russian national Yevgeniy Polyanin, were charged by the United States with conspiracy to commit fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, among other charges.

The Treasury Department also said the two operatives face sanctions for their role in ransomware incidents in the United States, as well as a virtual currency exchange called Chatex “for facilitating financial transactions for ransomware actors.”

The Treasury said the two individuals received more than $200 million in ransom payments paid in Bitcoin and Monero. It added that Latvian and Estonian government agencies were vital to the investigation.

Vasinskyi, 22, was being held in Poland pending U.S. extradition proceedings, while Polyanin, 28, remained at large.

The U.S. indictment of the Ukrainian hacker said he and other conspirators started deploying hacking software around April 2019 and “regularly” updated and refined it. The indictment also accused the hacker of laundering money obtained through a hacking extortion scheme.

Europol said earlier on Monday that Romanian authorities on Nov. 4 arrested two individuals suspected of cyber-attacks deploying the REvil ransomware. Since February, law enforcement authorities have arrested three other affiliates of REvil, Europol added.

Twelve suspects believed to have mounted ransomware attacks against companies or infrastructure in 71 countries were “targeted” in raids in Ukraine and Switzerland, Europol said on Friday.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. charges two Russians in international hacking, malware conspiracy

U.S. charges two Russians in international hacking, malware conspiracy
By Jonathan Stempel and Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Russian residents have been criminally charged in the United States over an alleged multi-year, international scheme to steal money and property by using malware to hack into computers, according to an indictment made public on Thursday.

Maksim Yakubets was accused of being the leader of a group of conspirators involved with Bugat malware and botnet, while his close associate Igor Turashev allegedly handled various functions for the conspiracy, the indictment said.

The indictment identifies Yakubets as one of the earliest users of a family of malicious software tools called Bugat — better known as Dridex — which has been bedeviling American banks and businesses for more than eight years.

Cybersecurity experts say the malware, which first appeared in late 2011, is responsible for millions of dollars in damages worldwide. Experts have long speculated that the malware is the brainchild of a Russian hacking group.

The conspiracy allegedly began around November 2011, and several entities – including a school, an oil firm, First Commmonwealth Bank – were among the defendants’ victims, according to the indictment filed with the federal court in Pittsburgh. Two of the transactions were processed through Citibank in New York, the indictment says.

The indictment is dated Nov. 12 but was unsealed on Thursday.

U.S. and British authorities are expected later Thursday to detail charges against a Russian national over allegations of computer hacking and bank fraud schemes, according to a U.S. Department of Justice statement.

That announcement characterized the Russian national as being “allegedly responsible for two of the worst computer hacking and bank fraud schemes of the past decade.”

Malware is a software program designed to gather sensitive information, such as passwords and bank account numbers, from private computers by installing viruses and other malicious programs.

Spokespeople for First Commonwealth Bank and Citibank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting by Susan Heavy, Lisa Lambert and Jonathan Stempel; additional reporting by Raphael Satter Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Nick Zieminski)

Ukraine says it captured Russian military intelligence hit squad

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Hrytsak (SBU) speaks during a news conference, dedicated to the alleged detention of members of a sabotage-reconnaissance group, who according to SBU were sent by Russian intelligence agencies, in Kiev, Ukraine April 17, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s security service SBU said on Wednesday it had captured a Russian military intelligence hit squad responsible for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian military spy in the run-up to a presidential election on Sunday.

The issue of how to deal with Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014 and backs pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, is prominent ahead of the vote, with incumbent Petro Poroshenko casting himself as the commander-in-chief Ukraine needs to defend the country.

Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the SBU, the main intelligence agency, told a news conference in Kiev that seven members of the Russian group had been detained and charged and that an eighth person had been detained on Wednesday morning.

Two of the group’s members were Russian citizens, said Anatoly Matios, Ukraine’s military prosecutor, describing them as staff officers of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. The other six were Ukrainians.

There was no immediate reaction from Russia’s GRU.

The SBU has reported before that it captured groups belonging to Russian special agencies.

“Those detained were involved in the attempted murder of an employee of the Ukrainian defense ministry’s intelligence service…in Kiev in April,” said Matios, adding the group had planted a bomb beneath the man’s car which had gone off prematurely, badly injuring one of the accused.

The SBU released a video of the same incident which showed a man placing the bomb under a car before a big explosion. The video showed a man lying in a hospital bed with part of his right arm missing saying he was Russian and born in Moscow.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Critics label Putin a hypocrite for attending veteran dissident’s wake

Russian President Vladimir Putin pays respect to founder of Russia’s oldest human rights group and Sakharov Prize winner Lyudmila Alexeyeva in Moscow, Russia December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Kremlin critics accused President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy for attending the wake on Tuesday of a veteran Soviet and Russian dissident who was a staunch critic of his administration.

Putin has been accused by rights groups of muzzling the media, jailing his opponents and clamping down on civil society over the 19 years in which he has dominated Russia’s political landscape and enjoyed consistently high popularity ratings.

People walk past a picture of the founder of Russia's oldest human rights group and Sakharov Prize winner, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, during her memorial service in Moscow, Russia December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

People walk past a picture of the founder of Russia’s oldest human rights group and Sakharov Prize winner, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, during her memorial service in Moscow, Russia December 11, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

The president joined hundreds of others who paid their respects at the open-cask ceremony for Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the founder of Russia’s oldest human rights group who died on Saturday aged 91.

But while Putin attended, a notable absentee was Alexeyeva’s fellow human rights veteran Lev Ponomaryov, jailed last week for calling in a Facebook post for rallies in support of activists at two political groups that authorities have labeled extremist.

“Instead of Lev Ponomaryov, Vladimir Putin will bid farewell to Alexeyeva. This is what it means to spit on someone’s grave,” journalist and long-standing Kremlin critic Viktor Shenderovich wrote on Facebook.

Ponomaryov, 77, is serving a 16-day sentence. A court rejected his appeal for dispensation to go to the funeral.

Asked on Monday about Putin’s possible attendance, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would be impossible for the president to not pay his respects on the same day that he was due to meet the Kremlin human rights council, on which Alexeyeva sat for many years.

Alexeyeva went into exile during the Communist era, returning to Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union. She was briefly detained by police at an anti-Kremlin protest at the age of 82 in 2009 and denounced Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Putin laid a bouquet at her cask and sat briefly nearby, exchanging words with another attendee before leaving through a side exit.

“Maybe it’s crappy PR, maybe something else,” wrote opposition politician Gennady Gudkov.

“But it’s entirely obvious that human rights defenders, environmentalists and in fact everyone who disagrees with the authorities’ course are persecuted in Russia with his (Putin’s) silent agreement.”

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by John Stonestreet)

Space crew survives plunge to Earth after Russian rocket fails

The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying the crew of astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov

By Shamil Zhumatov

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan (Reuters) – The two-man U.S.-Russian crew of a Soyuz spacecraft en route to the International Space Station was forced to make a dramatic emergency landing in Kazakhstan on Thursday when their rocket failed in mid-air.

U.S. astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin landed safely without harm and rescue crews who raced to locate them on the Kazakh steppe quickly linked up with them, NASA, the U.S. space agency, and Russia’s Roscosmos said.

It was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983 when a fire broke out at the base of the booster rocket while the crew was preparing for lift-off. The crew narrowly escaped before a large explosion.

Thursday’s problem occurred when the first and second stages of a booster rocket, launched from the Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur in the central Asian country, were separating, triggering emergency systems soon after launch.

The Soyuz capsule carrying the two men then separated from the malfunctioning rocket and made what NASA called a steep ballistic descent to Earth with parachutes helping slow its speed. A cloud of sand billowed up as the capsule came down on the desert steppe.

Rescue crews then raced to the scene to retrieve them with reports of paratroopers parachuting to their landing spot.

The failure is a setback for the Russian space program and the latest in a string of mishaps.

Moscow immediately suspended all manned space launches, the RIA news agency reported, while Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said he had ordered a state commission to be set up to investigate what had gone wrong.

Unnamed Russian space industry sources cited by news agencies said it would be hard to establish what had caused the incident because the booster rocket segments involved had been badly damaged in their fall.

Jim Bridenstine, NASA’s administrator who was in Kazakhstan to witness the launch, said in a statement that the failure had been caused by an anomaly with the rocket’s booster.

“A thorough investigation into the cause of the incident will be conducted,” he said, saying the safety of the crew was the utmost priority for NASA.

Photographs released by Roscosmos after the rescue showed the two astronauts smiling and relaxing on sofas at a town near their landing site as they underwent blood pressure and cardiac tests.

Footage from inside the Soyuz had shown the two men being shaken around at the moment the failure occurred, with their arms and legs flailing.

Ovchinin, the Russian cosmonaut, can be heard saying: “That was a quick flight.”

International Space Station (ISS) crew members astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia board the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft for the launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. Yuri Kochetkov/Pool via REUTERS

International Space Station (ISS) crew members astronaut Nick Hague of the U.S. and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin of Russia board the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft for the launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan October 11, 2018. Yuri Kochetkov/Pool via REUTERS

U.S. SPACE PLANS

For now, the United States relies on Moscow to carry its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) which was launched 20 years ago. NASA tentatively plans to send its first crew to the ISS using a SpaceX craft instead of a Soyuz next April.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the most important thing was that the two men were alive.

The ISS, launched in 1998, is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit which is used to carry out scientific and space-related tests.

It can hold a crew of up to six people and at present has three people aboard, two men — a German and a Russian – as well as one female U.S. astronaut.

“Rescue services have been working since the first second of the accident,” Rogozin wrote on Twitter. “The emergency rescue systems of the MS-Soyuz spacecraft worked smoothly. The crew has been saved.”

A Russian space industry source was cited by the Interfax news agency as saying that there was enough food onboard the ISS to last until April of next year.

The next re-supply run was meant to happen on Oct. 31, the source was quoted as saying, but that was now in doubt since the Progress supply ship was propelled by the same kind of rocket used in Thursday’s incident.

Questions are now likely to be asked about how efficiently Russia’s space program is running.

In August, a hole appeared in a Soyuz capsule already docked to the ISS which caused a brief loss of air pressure and had to be patched. Rogozin has said it could have been “sabotage”.

And in November last year, Roscosmos lost contact with a newly-launched weather satellite – the Meteor-M – after it blasted off from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome in the Far East.

Rogozin said at the time that the launch of the 2.6 billion-rouble ($39.02 million) satellite had been due to an embarrassing programming error.

($1 = 66.6315 roubles)

(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in Kazakhstan and by Christian Lowe, Tom Balmforth, Polina Nikolskaya, Polina Ivanova, Polina Devitt in Moscow; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Investigators identify Russian military unit in downing of flight MH17

Dutch police officer Wilbert Paulissen, head of the National Crime Squad, is pictured next to a damaged missile as he presents interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Anthony Deutsch

BUNNIK, Netherlands (Reuters) – Dutch prosecutors identified a Russian military unit on Thursday as the source of the missile that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 296 people on board.

The airliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a Russian-made “Buk” anti-aircraft missile on July 17, 2014 over territory held by pro-Russian separatists. There were no survivors. Two thirds of those killed were Dutch.

“The Buk that was used came from the Russian army, the 53rd brigade,” Chief Dutch Prosecutor Fred Westerbeke told Reuters. “We know that was used, but the people in charge of this Buk, we don’t know.”

Investigators appealed to the public to come forward and help identify members of the crew who operated the missile and determine how high up the chain of command the order originated.

FILE PHOTO: The reconstructed wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which crashed over Ukraine in July 2014 is seen in Gilze Rijen, Netherlands, October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Michael Kooren/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: The reconstructed wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 which crashed over Ukraine in July 2014 is seen in Gilze Rijen, Netherlands, October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Michael Kooren/File Photo

“The Russian Federation didn’t help us in providing us the information we brought out into the open today,” Westerbeke said. “They didn’t give us this information, although a Buk from their military forces was used.”

Russia repeated on Thursday that it had nothing to do with the incident.

“Not a single air defense missile launcher of the Russian Armed Forces has ever crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border,” Russia’s TASS news agency quoted the Defense Ministry as saying in a statement.

Prosecutors showed photos and videos of a truck convoy carrying the system as it crossed the border from Russia to Ukraine. It crossed back several days later with one missile missing. The vehicles had serial numbers and other markings that were unique to the 53rd brigade, an anti-aircraft unit based in the western Russian city of Kursk, they said.

In the interim update on their investigation, prosecutors said they had trimmed their list of possible suspects from more than a hundred to several dozen.

Westerbeke said investigators were not yet ready to identify individual suspects publicly or to issue indictments, but that when they do he expects cooperation, or a firm international political response.

Numbers are seen on a damaged missile displayed during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine who present interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Numbers are seen on a damaged missile displayed during a news conference by members of the Joint Investigation Team, comprising the authorities from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine who present interim results in the ongoing investigation of the 2014 MH17 crash that killed 298 people over eastern Ukraine, in Bunnik, Netherlands, May 24, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

HOLD RUSSIA ACCOUNTABLE

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte cut short a trip to India to return in time for a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss the latest findings in the inquiry.

The MH17 Disaster Foundation representing families of the victims demanded that the Dutch government take legal action to hold the Russian state accountable.

“It must go beyond legal exploration after this,” board member Piet Ploeg was quoted by the NOS broadcaster as saying.

A Joint Investigation Team, drawn from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine, is gathering evidence for a criminal prosecution in the downing of the plane.

Ukrainian Army General Vasyl Hrytsak, a member of the investigation team, told Reuters the next crucial step would be to pinpoint who issued the orders to move the missile system.

The Dutch Safety Board concluded in an October 2015 report that the Boeing 777 was struck by a Russian-made Buk missile.

(Additional reporting by Bart Meijer and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Moscow; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Graff)