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US Indicts Russian Intelligence Officials over Cyberattacks Targeting Ukraine

FILE PHOTO: A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo
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US Indicts Russian Intelligence Officials over Cyberattacks Targeting Ukraine

FILE PHOTO: A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo

The US on Thursday charged five Russian intelligence officials and a Russian civilian with conspiring to launch cyberattacks against Ukraine and its allies in a bid to hobble Ukraine.
In a revised indictment unsealed on Thursday, the Justice Department said a cyber unit of Russia's military intelligence agency conducted "large-scale cyber operations" starting as far back as 2020, before Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The original indictment, filed in June in the US District Court for the District of Maryland, only named a single defendant: Amin Stigal.
According to Reuters, it accused him of conspiring with Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, or GRU, to launch cyber attacks against computer systems in Ukraine and other countries, including a computer network maintained by an unnamed US agency in Maryland.
Thursday's news comes just one day after the US took several legal actions against Russia to combat alleged efforts to meddle in the 2024 presidential elections, including charging two employees of the Russian state media network RT and sanctioning RT and its top network editor.
It also came on the same day that the Justice Department announced it had secured two indictments against Russian TV contributor Dimitri Simes and his wife over sanctions violations and money laundering.
Earlier on Thursday, intelligence agencies in the US and the United Kingdom warned that a cyber espionage group located within Russia's GRU known as "Unit 29155" was destructively targeting critical national infrastructure.
Unit 29155, which is the group at the heart of Thursday's indictment, is a covert part of the GRU which carries out subversion, sabotage and assassination missions outside Russia, Western officials told Reuters.

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Macron Names EU Former Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s New Prime Minister

EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier names France's new PM (The AP)
EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier names France's new PM (The AP)
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Macron Names EU Former Brexit Negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s New Prime Minister

EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier names France's new PM (The AP)
EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier names France's new PM (The AP)

President Emmanuel Macron named EU former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France’s new prime minister on Thursday after more than 50 days of caretaker government, The AP reported.

The appointment of the 73-year-old Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Macron and his aides to find a candidate who might be able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by Macron’s opponents to quickly topple the new government that Barnier will now put together and lead.

A statement from Macron's office announcing Barnier's appointment said he'd been tasked “with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people.”

“This appointment comes after an unprecedented cycle of consultations during which, in accordance with his constitutional duty, the president ensured that the prime minister and the future government would meet the conditions to be as stable as possible and give themselves the chances of uniting as broadly as possible,” the statement said.

Barnier, a career politician proud of his humble roots in France’s Alpine region of Haute-Savoie, is no stranger to complex and difficult tasks: He was the European Union’s chief negotiator in the difficult talks with Britain over its Brexit departure from the bloc.

Barnier replaces Gabriel Attal, who resigned on July 16 following quick-fire legislative elections that produced a divided and hung parliament, plunging France into political turmoil.

But Macron kept Attal and his ministers on in a caretaker capacity, handling day-to-day affairs, so political instability wouldn’t overshadow the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Olympics, when France was in the global spotlight.

In political career over more than 50 years, Barnier has served as French foreign, European affairs, environment and agriculture minister — and twice as a European commissioner.

Influential far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon immediately came out against Barnier’s appointment and predicted the new prime minister would not get a majority backing in the bitterly divided National Assembly.

Melenchon said the appointment flew in the face of the July 7 legislative election results that left parliament’s lower house split between three main blocs — the left, including Melenchon’s party; the center where Macron has based his support, and the far right, converging around anti-immigration leader Marine Le Pen.

“The election has been stolen,” Melenchon asserted.