The Justice Department has indicted seven Russian spies, overlapping with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Russian intelligence officers tried to hack into anti-drug agencies and athletes’ computers across the United States, Canada and around the world to undermine their investigations into Russian doping, according to the FBI.
It came in retaliation to the agencies revealing Russia’s state-sponsored doping program for its athletes which led to the country’s athletes being stripped of dozens of OIympic medals and banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics.
“All of this was done to undermine those organizations’ efforts to ensure the integrity of the Olympic and other games,” said John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security.
While the latest case did not arise from Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian election meddling, it overlaps with it.
Yermakov, Malyshev, and Badin were among the 12 GRU officers indicted in July this year by Mueller, over alleged interference in the US polls in 2016.
Prosecutors said the Russians had also targeted the Pennsylvania-based headquarters of nuclear energy company Westinghouse Electric Co., that provides nuclear fuel to Ukraine.
“Nations like Russia and others that engage in malicious and norm-shattering cyber and influence activities should understand the continuing and steadfast resolve of the United States and its allies to prevent, disrupt and deter such unaccountable conduct,” Demers told a news conference.
“The defendants in this case should know that justice is very patient, its reach is long and its memory is even longer,” he said.
The hacks on the athletes’ computers and data was an attempt to discredit them after they spoke out against the Russian doping scandal, or in favor of Russian athletes being banned.
The FBI has since seized the fancybears.net and fancybears.org domains in an effort to limit further exposure of the private lives of victim athletes.
The hacks began in December 2014 and continued until at least May 2018, officials said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly and angrily rejected similar charges, and Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, reacting to the British and Australian claims, that the allegations had been mixed together ‘indiscriminately.’
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg separately warned Russia to halt its ‘reckless’ behavior.
Canada confirmed today it believes itself to have been targeted by Russian cyber attacks, citing breaches at its center for ethics in sports and at the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
The defendants, all Russian nationals and residents, are Aleksei Sergeyevich Morenets, 41, Evgenii Mikhaylovich, Serebriakov, 37, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, 32, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, 30, and Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, 27, who were each assigned to Military Unit 26165, and Oleg Mikhaylovich Sotnikov, 46, and Alexey Valerevich Minin, 46, who were also GRU officers.
Three of them were also indicted in July for allegedly conspiring to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.