Pompeo's Talks With Lavrov, Putin Open Door for Dialogue on Cybersecurity - Moscow
Last week's talks of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opened a possibility for resuming the dialogue between Moscow and Washington on a number of issues, including cybersecurity, Andrey Krutskikh, Russian Special Presidential Representative for international cooperation in information security, said Monday
Pompeo met with Putin and Lavrov in Sochi on May 14. The sides called the dialogue constructive and agreed to continue discussion on all issues.
"This is an objective and very urgent issue that we simply cannot avoid discussing. Now after Pompeo's visit and conversation with the president of Russia and our minister of foreign affairs, the key conclusion made was that the prospect of resuming talks with Russia on all important and priority issues opens up," Krutskikh told journalists when commenting on the US-Russia collaboration around cybersecurity.
Cybersecurity agenda is very broad and is likely to first be discussed at expert level before being taken to state level, he added.
The day following the Pompeo-Lavrov-Putin meeting, US lawmakers in both houses of Congress came up with a new draft legislation on cybersecurity. If adopted, it will provide for voter-verifiable paper ballots and enhanced cybersecurity standards during the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
According to the bill's authors, Congress had to act out of fear that President Donald Trump's administration would fail in protecting the US election from Russia's interference.
The United States repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in their political processes by means of cyberattacks, in particular, during the 2016 presidential election. Moscow has been consistent in denying these allegations.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, mandated to investigate the alleged interference over the past two years, found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia but established that Moscow systematically interfered in the US elections through two chief methods social media campaigns and GRU-backed cyberattacks. According to Moscow, the report does not provide any substantial evidence on the matter.
In a Sunday interview with Fox news, Trump appeared to confirm that his administration authorized a cyberattack on Russia during the US midterm elections last year.
Legislation making cyberattacks punishable with sanctions has recently been adopted in the European Union. The new mechanism covers attacks against all member states, as well as third states and international organizations deemed necessary within the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.