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The Department of Defense announces transfer of a Guantanamo detainee to Saudi Arabia. Leaves 103 detainees left at Gitmo. This transfer was approved in October.
Reuters:President Barack Obama will make good on a promise to close the U.S. naval prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, his chief of staff Denis McDonough said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Obama will first present a long-awaited plan to Congress about how to close the facility, and seek its approval, McDonough said in an interview. If Congress fails to act, the White House will determine what steps to take, he said.
“He feels an obligation to the next president. He will fix this so that they don’t have to be confronted with the same set of challenges,” McDonough said.
Obama pledged during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would close the military prison, which housed foreign terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
That pledge, still unfilled, has been a feature of his annual State of the Union addresses to the nation ever since.
Obama has said the facility has been used as a recruiting tool in propaganda from groups like al Qaeda, and also is far too costly to maintain. There are 104 detainees left at the prison.
Where possible, his administration has transferred detainees to other countries. But there is a small number of detainees who the administration says it would like to detain in a U.S. facility for national security reasons.
Congress has explicitly banned the transfer of detainees to the United States.
McDonough declined to say whether Obama would close the prison using his own executive powers if Congress rejects his plan.
So what are the options for Barack Obama on those Gitmo detainees that no country will take in a transfer? Enough money and politics will force any country being strong-armed by the White House to take the worst of the worst. If not, there are other options. Obama can use his pen and force a Federal prison in the U.S. to take the remaining detainees or he can transfer the jihadis to another U.S. held prison facility/detention center in a foreign country.
Could they be transferred to the control of the United Nations and be placed in a U.N. prison facility?
If he is successful in closing the detention facility what will happen to it? Could Obama cancel the lease with Cuba? Yes. Could the facility be transferred to Cuba and then handed over to Iran, Russia or China? Yes.
What is worse, Obama is bent on taking robust action on Gitmo such that the next administration cannot restore it after it is closed. This leaves few options for the next president or does it?
At issue is fundamentally, Naval Station Guantanamo Bay is a full service military base that provides regional security to the Caribbean and monitors activity in Central and South America. It also provides the Department of Homeland Security with assistance in migrant operations.
Other detachments located at the base are: Personnel Support Activity, Naval Atlantic Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Naval Media Center, Naval Communications Station, Department of Defense Dependent Schools, Navy Brig, and Fleet and Industrial Supply Center.
NAVSTA GTMO garrison facilities
The bay area is divided into two parts known as the outer and inner harbours. The inner harbour includes commercial ports while the outer harbour accommodates naval station and the main anchorage space. Pier and wharf facilities are located at the small inlets located between Corinaso Point and Deer Point.
Air facilities
NAVSTA GTMO had two airfields namely Leeward Point Field and McCalla Airfield. The operations at McCalla Airfield were ceased in 1976. The Leeward Point Field is the only active military airfield in the base. It has a single runway (10/28) measuring 2,438m x 61m and surfaced with asphalt.
Other base facilities and services
The naval station has four wind turbines generating 3,800kW electricity, enough to fulfil 25% its power requirements. A desalination plant capable of producing 2.25 million gallons of fresh water a day is attached to the base. The plant also produces a combined 15,000kw of electricity through its two turbine generators.
Guantanamo has had operations that includes air fields with aircraft including F8U Crusaders and A4D Skyhawks. It was also an anti-submarine center and a training center. It can handle and has handled 50 warships.
Further, the Haitian crisis , the Balkan crisis and the famous Cuban missile crisis.
Imagine a foreign government in control of U.S. naval infrastructure and technology. Just imagine.
By Zerohedge: Serco. Chances are you’ve never heard of the company. If you have heard of the company, chances are you misunderstand the shear enormity of the global company and their contracts.
From transport to air traffic control, getting your license in Canada, to running all 7 immigration detention centers in Australia, private prisons in the UK, military base presence, running nuclear arsenals, and running all state schools in Bradford, Serco, somewhere, has played a part in moving, educating, or detaining people.
New contracts awarded to Serco include a Saudi Railway Company, further air traffic control in the US and also IT support services for various European agencies. You can read more on their future projects below.
Serco’s history began in 1929 as a UK subsidiary, RCA Services Limited to support the cinema industry.
In the 1960s the company made a leap into military contracts to maintain the UK Air Force base Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. From there, the company continues to grow.
Now trading as Serco Group, 2015 trading as of August 11 2015, maintained a revenue of £3.5 billion, and an underlying trading profit of £90 million. The data was presented at JPMorgan in London.
In 2013 Serco was considered a potential risk, and became a representation of the dangers of outsourcing. The U.K. government developed contingency plans in case Serco went bankrupt. When the concerns came to light, Serco faced bans (along with G4S, another outsourcing contractor) from further bidding on new U.K. government work for six months. It wasn’t until Rupert Soames OBE – Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson – took on the job as Serco’s Chief Executive in 2014, that Serco turned a new corner of profit growth.
Serco Today
Serco today is one of the biggest global companies to exist. They have contracts with:
Alliant – the vehicle for IT services across the Federal IT market;
National Security Personnel System (NSPS) – For “(NSPS) training and facilitating services throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) and agencies that needs NSPS training and implementation services;”
Seaport – The NAVSEA SEAPORT Multiple Award contract focuses on “engineering, technical, and programmatic support services for the Warfare Centers.” This is inclusive of Homeland Security and Force Protection, Strategic Weapons Systems, and multiple warfare systems.
CIP-SP3 Services and Solutions(Cost $20 Billion, expiration date 2022) – biomedical-related IT services with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with the main objective focused on Biomedical Research and Health Sciences extending to information systems throughout the federal government. Also implementation in several key areas of Biomedical Sciences including legislation and critical infrastructure protection.
The few contracts listed above are among the vast array of transport, detention center and private prison contracts.
Serco, the biggest company you’ve never heard of…..
Documents provided to RFE/RL by Wicker’s office — and corroborated by public property registries — show that companies associated with Lesin’s immediate family purchased the three properties in the Los Angeles area.
These include a 13,000-square-foot Beverly Hills home purchased in August 2011 for $13.8 million by Dastel Coroporation, where Lesin’s son, Anton Lessine, served as a corporate officer, according to public records.
The address of this home and Dastel’s business address are the same, according to public records and a lawsuit pending in California Superior Court.
The property is located in Beverly Park, a swanky gated community with round-the-clock security and whose residents have included actor Samuel L. Jackson and professional basketball legend Magic Johnson, accordingto “The Los Angeles Times.”
A third home, totaling more than 6,800 square feet, was purchased in Beverly Hills for $5.6 million by HFC Management, a firm that lists Lesin’s daughter, Ekaterina Lesina, as a company officer.
DailyBeast:The D.C. cops won’t say what killed Mikhail Lesin—or what he was doing in a hotel room there. But all signs point to the former Kremlin propaganda boss cutting a deal with the FBI.
When police found Mikhail Lesin dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, the most interesting question wasn’t the cause of his demise, but what he was doing in the United States in the first place.
The former propaganda chief for Russian president Vladimir Putin, nicknamed “the bulldozer” for his history of rolling over his opposition, Lesin had been under scrutiny by the FBI and the Justice Department for potential money laundering and violation of corruption laws. Lesin was suspected of hiding ill-gotten gains in nearly $30 million worth of luxury real estate in southern California, an astounding set of assets for a man supposedly collecting a civil servant’s salary. He’d also been considered for sanctions that would have prevented him from obtaining a visa to enter the United States.
Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi who has spent years looking into corruption and human-rights abuses in Russia, had asked the Justice Department to investigate Lesin. In December 2014, the department confirmed it had referred Lesin’s case to the Criminal Division and to the FBI. While officials declined to say whether they formally opened an investigation, several close watchers of Lesin’s case told The Daily Beast they thought it was all but certain that he was being pursued by U.S. law enforcement. And if he wasn’t under active criminal investigation, the FBI had enough evidence to consider opening a case, they said. A bureau spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.
So why did Lesin, who was 57, tempt fate by entering the United States this past November?
The purpose of his visit was never made clear. But he was staying in a mid-range hotel on Washington’s DuPont Circle. While not shabby, it’s doesn’t seem the kind of place that attracts people who buy multimillion-dollar estates. It does, though, offer a comparatively low per-night rate, perhaps more in line with U.S. government budgets, and is known to host foreign government officials and visitors on exchange programs. It’s also located a short drive from FBI and Justice Department headquarters.
These are the broad strokes of Lesin’s case. And in some foreign policy circles in Washington—as well as in Russian media—they have fueled speculation that Lesin was murdered after coming to Washington to cut a deal with the FBI.
Lesin certainly would have had a lot to say about Putin’s inner circle—he worked with, and reportedly owed money to, some of the most powerful men in Russian media and finance. And he would have had a powerful incentive to cooperate with U.S. authorities, namely hanging onto his several mansions in Los Angeles, which potentially could have been seized. At least two of the homes are known to be occupied, respectively, by his daughter and his son, a Hollywood film producer whose star is on the rise.
Adding to the mystery, the precise cause of Lesin’s untimely demise hasn’t been revealed. Almost immediately, the broadcasting outfit RT (Russia Today), widely seen as a Kremlin mouthpiece, reported that Lesin died of a “heart attack,” citing an unnamed “family member.”
But a spokesperson for the Washington, D.C., police department told The Daily Beast that Lesin’s death is still under investigation. And although a coroner performed an autopsy nearly two months ago, the police aren’t saying how he died. That’s an unusually long time not to publicly state a cause of death.
The conspiracy theories are arguably well-founded, because it wouldn’t be the first time someone who posed a political threat to Putin wound up dead under unusual circumstances, including poisoning.
Lesin was also being squeezed by the U.S. government. Two years ago he’d been nominated by human-rights groups for the so-called Magnitsky list of Russian human-rights violators, which would have allowed Washington to deny him a visa and seize his assets in this country. Lesin was not placed on the public list, which consists mainly of mid-level officials not as influential as the former propaganda chief. But U.S. officials maintain a classified annex which reportedly includes more senior Russians, including those closer to Putin. It’s not known whether Lesin was on that list, but activists lobbied hard to put him there.
He would have been an ideal candidate. Not only was he one of RT’s founding fathers, credited with conceiving of the network while working for Putin in order to counter what he saw as anti-Russia journalism in the West. (“It’s been a long time since I was scared by the word propaganda,” Lesin said in 2007, according to RT. “We need to promote Russia internationally. Otherwise, we’d just look like roaring bears on the prowl.”)
The Washington, D.C., police department told The Daily Beast that Lesin’s death is still under investigation. And although a coroner performed an autopsy nearly two months ago, the police aren’t saying how he died. That’s an unusually long time not to publicly state a cause of death.
Lesin was also a longtime Putin crony, and he played a central role in an early project by the Russian strongman to gut the country’s independent television station, NTV, which had aired critical reports about government corruption, the war in Chechnya, and had become a soapbox for prominent Putin critics. While Lesin was serving as the information minister, Russia jailed NTV’s founder and majority shareholder, Vladimir Gusinsky.
“While he was there, the information minister made an offer: Gusinsky could have his freedom if he agreed to transfer his media holdings to Gazprom, the state-owned energy monopoly,” according to Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Muzra, who has probed Lesin’s financial and real estate holdings. It was a naked power play that the European Court of Human Rights found was politically motivated and amounted to state-sanctioned blackmail.
Gusinksy didn’t end up going along with the deal to hand over the media company. But Gazprom took over NTV anyway–by force–and in 2013 Lesin became the head of Gazprom-Media, an actual state-run media organization. RT, which reported the cause of Lesin’s death before a medical examiner had even seen his body, merely receives funding from the state.
The Gazprom takeover has raised concerns among U.S. investigators that Lesin may have come by a fortune through illegal seizures of private property, and then laundered those proceeds by stashing them in American real estate, according to two sources who have followed Lesin’s finances and asked not to be identified.
Landing Lesin could have led investigators to other, even bigger fish. As Wicker wrote to then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2014, Lesin “may also have close business ties with individuals subject to U.S. sanctions,” as well as organizations, including Bank Rossiya, which is closely linked to Gazprom, and the bank’s owner, Yury Kovalchuk, a billionaire who ranks among Russia’s richest people, is reportedly close to Putin personally, and was sanctioned by the Treasury Department after Russia invaded Crimea.
If Lesin were found to be violating U.S. money-laundering laws, it could provide a rare opportunity to snare a senior Putin aide. After Wicker pressed the issue, relying in part on public property records that clearly linked the L.A. mansions to Lesin, the Justice Department considered whether to go after him.
Following the news of his death, the Kremlin issued a statement on behalf of Putin, noting “The president has a high appreciation for Mikhail Lesin’s massive contribution to the creation of modern Russian mass media.”
But having Lesin as an informant would been a big contribution to U.S. law enforcement and intelligence. And the information that Wicker and his staff, as well as human-rights groups and journalists, dug up on Lesin may have pushed him closer to the FBI’s arms.
About two weeks after the Justice Department informed Wicker that the allegations against Lesin were referred to the FBI, Lesin resigned as the head of Gazprom-Media, citing unspecified “family reasons.” Kara-Murza, the journalist and Putin critic, who himself fell mysteriously ill last summer, has directly linked the department’s announcement to Lesin’s stepping down and said it showed that the threat of sanctions and prosecution could be used to bring down corrupt Russian officials.
“That’s just one example of how effective this process can be if it’s applied properly, if it’s done against the right people,” Kara-Murza said in remarks at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, in October. Kara-Murza declined to discuss Lesin’s case with The Daily Beast, citing the Latin admonition “de mortuis nihil nisi bonum.” Of the dead, [say] nothing, unless good. “And I have nothing good to say about him.”
Meanwhile, Lesin’s children have also kept mum. His son, Anton Lessine (the surnames are spelled differently), didn’t respond to a request for comment, and his daughter couldn’t be reached. Anton has been on a roll in Hollywood, helping financing high-profile movies with A-list talent. He was the executive producer of the Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle Sabotage, the Brad Pitt WWII tank pic Fury, 2015’s Bill Murray comedy Rock the Kasbah, and 2016’s transgenerational buddy flick Dirty Grandpa, starring Robert DeNiro and Zac Effron.
Times are good for the son of the ex-Putin aide, who seems to have come out of nowhere in the famously hard-to-crack world of big-budget filmmaking. He recently purchased a mansion in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades for an asking price of nearly $4 million. How exactly the Lesin family came into such good fortune is a question that has piqued the interest of U.S. investigators.
As might another question: Was Lesin in debt, and ready to flee Russia for a new life? After Lesin’s death, The Moscow Timesreported that he may have stepped down from Gazprom-Media after losing an internal power struggle. Jobless and with high-level enemies, Lesin also owed “a huge amount of money” to Kovalchuk, the billionaire banker, which he didn’t intended to repay, the news organization reported, citing anonymous sources.
“He also underestimated his rivals,” The Moscow Times wrote. “The heads of three of Russia’s major TV channels complained to President Putin that Lesin had begun behaving as if he was their boss, as he had been while press minister.”
The walls were closing in on Lesin–in Washington and in Moscow. Perhaps Lesin’s trip to that DuPont Circle hotel was his first step towards a new life. But if he’d become an enemy of Putin and his friends, even the FBI might not have been able to save him.
I was asked today if the facts told by North Korea launching a thermonuclear weapon was accurate. My response was kinda sorta. The matter of North Korea performing this launch test was no surprise for those paying attention as North Korea warned of this last month.
One would think that after this recent North Korea test and the three previous tests, the National Security Council, the White House and the Pentagon would announce the placement of all offensive measures with respect to North Korea and Iran…so far…nothing announced at all. Hummmm.
This test appears to be a hybrid weapon of sorts or a primary test launch for that they are designing and building. Either way, there are many widespread implications and it is necessary to put China and Iran into the blame equation. The Obama White House as well as the John Kerry State Department immediately threw cold water on the whole notion of accuracy in the successful post launch announcement. Of course they did given this administration is not equipped or opposed enough to condemn the action except to pass it off to the United Nations for a lame and feeble isolation resolution.
What never does get mention is what are the defenses against a successful more destructive launch either by Iran or North Korea? We DO have them.
Missile Defense
Learn about THAAD. Perhaps a courtesy of Ronald Reagan and his ‘star wars’ mission.
THAAD = Terminal High Altitude Area Defense
Gertz/FreeBeacon: Preliminary U.S. intelligence estimates have concluded that North Korea’s fourth underground nuclear test on Tuesday involved a small explosion that could be a component of a larger-scale thermonuclear device.
U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports of the underground test estimated the low yield of the detected blast to be between 5 kilotons to 7 kilotons—far less than would be detected in a two-stage thermonuclear blast, or hydrogen bomb.
The Pyongyang government announced that the test that took place Wednesday morning local time at a nuclear testing site in northeast North Korea and that it was a successful “first H-bomb test.”
The test was announced in two official statements broadcast on state-run radio and television.
Unlike the past three nuclear tests, the regime conducted the test with no advance notice. Past tests were preceded by stern public warnings in state-run media.
Also in a break with practice, the two official North Korean statements asserted the test was directly ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A copy of Kim’s written order was shown on North Korean television, and he was shown signing the order.
Another unusual feature in the handling of the nuclear test were statements indicating the blast was carried out “safely and flawlessly” without harming the environment. The statements noted that North Korea is a responsible nuclear power and would not be the first to use nuclear arms in a conflict and would not transfer nuclear technology unless “hostile forces infringe upon its sovereignty.”
Initial U.S. intelligence analysis of the official statements indicates the test had two goals.
One key objective for the underground blast was to bolster statements last month by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the North has developed a hydrogen bomb.
By conducting the test, Kim is seeking to cement his position within the regime. The supreme leader turns 33 on Friday and is widely viewed by intelligence analysts as inexperienced, compared to his father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung.
A second objective of the test was to persuade China, North Korea’s main patron, to back off pressuring the regime to abandon its nuclear program.
The harsh language used in the official statement—including a threat to adopt a more hostile posture in the coming months—were interpreted as a sign that the current tense relations with China over its opposition to the nuclear program was a main driver behind the surprise nuclear test.
“Initial reports indicate the North Koreans may be bragging a little bit too much,” said one official of the claims of a hydrogen bomb test.
The test was widely reported on social media shortly after it took place based on detection of a 5.1 magnitude seismic event Tuesday evening near a nuclear test site called Punggye-ri, in Kilju, North Hamgyong Province.
The test prompted international condemnation but a limited reaction from the Obama administration, which sought to play down the latest nuclear provocation.
In New York, the United Nations held an emergency meeting during which additional sanctions on North Korea were discussed. Sanctions were imposed after earlier nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, and 2013.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who was briefed on the test by Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces in Korea, spoke by telephone to South Korean Defense Minister Han Min Koo. Both officials agreed the test was an “unacceptable and irresponsible provocation” as well as a “flagrant violation of international law and a threat to the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the entire Asia-Pacific region,” according to a statement.
Carter stressed in the call the United States was committed to maintaining U.S. extended nuclear deterrence protection for South Korea.
The White House said the United States and regional allies would take up the test at the United Nations, which sanctioned North Korea for past nuclear and missile tests.
“What is true is that North Korea continues to be one of the most isolated nations in the world and their isolation has only deepened as they have sought to engage in increasingly provocative acts,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.
On Capitol Hill, senior Republican leaders criticized the Obama administration for weak policies toward the rogue state.
House Speak Paul Ryan said the increasing nuclear threat posed by North Korea grew out of the failed nuclear agreement with North Korea reached by the Bill Clinton administration.
“This is exactly what happens when we appease and embolden rogue regimes,” Ryan said, noting the test had not been confirmed.
“President Obama has been guilty of this on more than one occasion,” he added, noting failed policies in Syria and Iran.
“The world is a safer place when we stand up to brutal regimes like those in Tehran, Damascus, and Pyongyang—and that’s not happening under our current president,” Ryan said.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry said the test shows “the world is rapidly growing more dangerous, and the United States cannot afford to focus only on ISIS or Iran or Russia.”
“We must be prepared to protect our national security against many threats,” Thornberry said. “Unfortunately, the view around the world is that U.S. leadership is in decline while the administration’s inaction only fuels those concerns.”
Thornberry called for deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea and for strengthening the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, criticized the president’s policies.
“We are watching seven years of President Obama’s failures play out—this is what ‘leading from behind’ has wrought,” said Rogers (R., Ala.)
“While the president has wasted his two terms in office, North Korea has continued to develop its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities,” Rogers added.
Former Pentagon nuclear forces official Mark Schneider said the reported low yield of the test indicates the blast was not a thermonuclear device.
“It could be a fission trigger or primary for a thermonuclear weapon,” he said.
Schneider said nuclear specialists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are betting at estimating nuclear yields than U.S. intelligence agencies, which during the Cold War consistently underestimated Soviet thermonuclear tests.
“If the yield is significantly higher than the 6-kt estimated in [news reports], it could be more than a primary test,” Schneider added.
North Korea is estimated to have a stockpile of between one and several dozen missile-deliverable warheads.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the North Korean nuclear threat is “a frightening vision of a future with President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.”
“This is yet another example of how President Obama and former secretary [of state Hillary] Clinton’s policy of ‘strategic patience’ with North Korea has led the U.S. down a perilous path, and we are in urgent need of a new approach,” said Pompeo (R., Kan.)
“We cannot continue President Obama’s policy of turning a blind eye to North Korea and Iran.”
A Chinese government spokesman said Beijing opposed the test but warned Japan not to take provocative counter actions in response.
China has sought to rein in North Korea military provocations, including nuclear and long-range missile tests.
“We strongly urge [North Korea] to remain committed to its denuclearization commitment, and stop taking any actions that would make the situation worse,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
The European Union, in a statement, said that if the test blast is confirmed as nuclear it would be “a grave violation” of North Korea’s international obligations under U.N. resolutions not to produce or test nuclear weapons.
A nuclear test would be “a threat to the peace and security of the entire North East Asia region,” the EU said.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg criticized the announced nuclear test. “I condemn the continued development by North Korea of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and its inflammatory and threatening rhetoric,” he said.
The latest nuclear test was not a surprise and followed a recent boast from Kim, the North Korean leader, that his state had developed a thermonuclear bomb.
South Korea’s Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Defense Command, a Defense Ministry group, stated in a report made public Sunday that a nuclear test was expected but that it likely would not be a large-scale thermonuclear blast.
“We can’t discount the possibility that the North’s excavation of a new tunnel at its Punggye-ri test site could be designed for thermonuclear weapons tests,” command said. “Considering its research of nuclear technology, its history of underground and projectile tests, and elapsed time since its nuclear development, North Korea has the foundation for thermonuclear weapons, the report added according to the semi-official Yonhap news agency.
Thermonuclear bombs are advanced weapons that employ a nuclear blast to create a larger hydrogen blast.
Former Defense Intelligence Agency official Bruce Bechtol said if the test was a hydrogen bomb “this means the North Koreans are advancing their nuclear weaponization program at a faster and more efficient—and deadly—pace than most analysts have predicted in the past.”
“Yes it changes things,” he added. “It increases the possibilities regarding the threat that North Korea can pose to South Korea, the region, and the USA.”
The nuclear test follows North Korea’s successful submarine missile ejection test Dec. 21 from a submerged submarine. The test was regarded by U.S. intelligence agencies as a significant advance in Pyongyang’s bid to develop nuclear-armed submarine-launched missiles.
The submarine used in the test, known as the Gorae, or Whale, suffered a serious malfunction in attempting an ejection test Nov. 28. That test nearly sank the submarine, which returned to port listing at a 45-degree angle, according to U.S. officials.
The Russian government is considered to be one of the most advanced cyber actors globally, with highly sophisticated cyber capabilities on par with the other major cyber powers. Open source information about Russian cyber programs and funding is scarce, but an ultimate goal of the government is to gain information superiority, both in peacetime and in military conflicts.
According to U.S. intelligence, Russia is a top nation state threat to American interests. Russian armed forces have been establishing a cyber command and a specialized branch to carry out computer network operations. It is likely that Russia aspires to integrate cyber into all military services. For example, the Russian government news agency TASS has reported that strategic missile forces are establishing special cyber units, and according to Russian general Yuri Kuznetsov, cyber defense units in the Russian armed forces will acquire operational capabilities by 2017.
Researchers from China have observed that Russian armed forces have rehearsed both attacking an adversary’s cyber targets and defending themselves against cyber attacks. It is believed that Russia, in addition to its espionage over the last decade against Western governments, is conducting its own active research and development of cyber weapons. It has also been alleged that FSB develops sophisticated computer malware programs.
However, despite a belief shared by many that Russia possesses capabilities to conduct cyber network attacks with physical effects equivalent to a kinetic attack, in the recent hybrid conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine, only a limited use of cyber attacks has been recorded. No physical damage, or disruption of critical infrastructure or weapons has been reported, but there is evidence that Russian actors are capable of taking down services. For example, Russian APT28 (Pawn Storm/Sofacy/Tsar Team) shut off transmissions of French TV5 Monde for 18 hours, and its cyber attacks allegedly resulted in significant damage to the channel’s infrastructure. Moreover, the Ukrainian security service (SBU) reported in December 2015 that Russian security services have planted malware into the networks of Ukrainian regional power companies. Power outages are reported to have occurred shortly thereafter. However, due to the lack of investigation and evidence, it is not possible to attribute these outages to any actors.
The majority of analysts concede that Russian cyber attacks have been closely coordinated with military operations both in Georgia and Ukraine. As part of their information warfare campaign, Russians used electronic warfare (EW) and signals intelligence in both theatres. Much less known is the fact that in March 2014, Russian EW forces rerouted internet traffic from Crimean servers to Russian servers, most likely for eavesdropping purposes. There is also consensus that the effects of Russian cyber attacks have been limited – in Georgia, cyber attacks created a military advantage only at the operational and tactical levels, and in Ukraine, Russian cyber attacks had only a short term tactical effect. Hence in both theatres, strategic effects (diminishing opponent’s will or capacity to resist) and military effects (degrading performance of opponent’s military) were not achieved.
The most sophisticated cyber capabilities used in these conflicts have been cyber espionage campaigns sponsored or supported by the Russian government. For example, security companies have gathered evidence indicating that APT28 (which targeted the Georgian government), and APT29 (whose targets are consistent with Russian government interests in regards to the Ukrainian conflict) were both sponsored by the Russian government. Russian APTs possess sophisticated cyber capabilities (e.g. ability to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities, target mobile devices, evade detection, and hide operational command and control). Furthermore, a prominent cyber espionage campaign against the Ukrainian military and government officials, Operation Armageddon, has been attributed by SBU to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). This has been corroborated by technical evidence from an independent security company.
In addition to gathering intelligence, some Russian APTs are able to remotely access industrial control systems (ICS). A cyber espionage group Sandworm (that has been active in Ukraine) uses BlackEnergy malware that is believed to also be embedded into critical infrastructure in the U.S. It is interesting to note that four Russian APTs have been using particular types of malware, which suggests links between these actors.
Russia is developing asymmetric measures to offset the West’s technological and conventional edge. While total information superiority has not been attained, the final outcome of the cyber build up is uncertain, and it will continue to be a topic of concern for businesses and nations for the foreseeable future.
