(by Andrea Pinto) A message appeared on most Ukrainian institutional computers: “Ukrainians, all your personal data has been deleted and it will not be possible to get it back. Be afraid, and expect the worst ".
Thus the servers of important ministries such as that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Education were violated. Yesterday, late in the evening, the service was restored but the signs of an attack remain that do not lead to anything good. It is no coincidence that the attack started following the continuous misunderstandings between Russia, OECD, NATO e Use, after the bankruptcy summits of these days. The accusations are reciprocal between the blocs: Russia accuses NATO of wanting to expand further east, even incorporating Ukraine into the protective umbrella referred to in art. 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, while NATO, with the USA in the lead, accuse Moscow of having undertaken, over the last ten years, an aggressive foreign policy that does not respect international law, tending to subjugate neighboring countries, once incorporated into the former Soviet Union.
Another node is the energy issue where Russia, through the private company Gazprom, manages, at will, the flow of gas to Europe as a retaliation to the Western world. The Kremlin, in fact, uses the lever of gas flows also to unblock the Baltic project Nord Stream 2 which transports natural gas from Russian fields to the German coast. The ambitious pipeline stretches 1230 km under the Baltic Sea and is the longest in the world. It was designed to upgrade the gas already supplied by Russia to Europe, thus doubling the route of the existing Nord Stream which runs parallel to the new project.
Moscow therefore wants written assurances on the permanent exclusion of Ukraine from NATO, and on the withdrawal of the allied defensive positions located in Poland and in the Baltic countries. The US and NATO, on the other hand, repeat that it will not be Russia that will change the policy of expansion to new members that characterizes the Treaty, and instead ask for an immediate de-escalation on the border with Ukraine.
However, the cyber attack could also be the prelude to a ground attack in Ukraine, supported by the Ukrainian ambassador in Washington. Oksana Markova: "if Russia decides to attack our country, the military offensive will be preceded by a cyber attack ”.
While the Russian foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov he said in a television interview that his government is ready to take measures "military of a technical nature”, Sending troops to Cuba and Venezuela.
II US State Department, in response, he stated that the counter-offensive will be determined and commensurate with the threat of a possible deployment of Russian soldiers in the Caribbean area.
US intelligence claims, however, that Russia has already infiltrated Ukrainian provincial agentsocatori ready to carry out a high-profile attack on a Russian target, such as a consular office. The attack would become the pretext for the entry of Russian troops and its allies who have been pressing on the entire northern and eastern border of the country for a month, a photocopy of what happened eight years ago in Crimea.
It seems to have returned to the cold war of a time. For now, beyond the hacker attack in Ukraine, only the rhetoric between the different opposing blocs is holding a ban. However, the next meeting between Putin and Xi Jinping will be important, where a powerful and threatening Eurasian bloc could be born that is difficult to counter.
