Russia Accused in Cyber Attacks on Investigators Pursuing Doping and Poisoning Cases

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Department of Justice officials said some Russian intelligence officers were behind attempted attacks on antidoping agencies, inspectors scrutinizing the poisoning of a former spy in Britain and others examining the downing of a passenger jet in 2014.Published OnOct. 4, 2018CreditCreditImage by Bart Maat/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Eileen Sullivan, Charlie Savage and David D. Kirkpatrick

Oct. 4, 2018

WASHINGTON — Russian intelligence officers brazenly launched cyberattacks on investigators pursuing cases of Russian malfeasance around the globe, Western officials said on Thursday, offering a litany of victims including antidoping agencies, inspectors scrutinizing the poisoning of a former spy in Britain and others examining the downing of a passenger jet in 2014.

The Justice Department indicted seven Russian intelligence officers on charges of trying to hack into antidrug agencies in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, in an apparent effort to undermine their pursuit of Russian doping.

Hours earlier, officials in Europe accused Russia of cyberattacks on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The group was investigating the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughter. British officials have accused Russia of using a nerve agent to try to kill the former spy, prompting the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Western countries this year.

An image released and manipulated by the Dutch Defense Ministry shows four Russian military intelligence officers being escorted to their flight after they were expelled from the Netherlands.CreditDutch Defense Ministry, via Associated Press

Officials in London also revealed an attempted hack on the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Russian military intelligence officers in March, in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Mr. Skripal.

Dutch officials pointed to four Russians who they said were also behind an attempt to hack a Swiss laboratory testing a nerve agent for the chemical weapons organization as part of its investigation into the poisoning of the Skripals. On Monday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called Mr. Skripal “simply a scumbag” and “a traitor to the motherland.”

The Russian officers also targeted Malaysian investigators examining the shooting down of a passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014, the officials said. Russia has been blamed in that crash.

Though unlikely to lead to arrests or convictions, the accusations formed the latest round of an international public shaming of the Kremlin by the West.

In a similar coordinated diplomatic offensive against Russia in March, European nations, the United States and Canada expelled scores of Russian diplomats in a sign of allegiance with Britain over the poisoning of Mr. Skripel and his daughter.

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Hacking equipment belonging to the G.R.U. officers.CreditDutch Defense Ministry, via Associated Press

“The defendants believed that they could use their perceived anonymity to act with impunity, in their own countries and on territories of other sovereign nations, to undermine international institutions and to distract from their government’s own wrongdoing,” John C. Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said on Thursday. “They were wrong.”

Three of the seven agents charged in the United States case were also indicted by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for their roles in interfering in the 2016 United States presidential election, Mr. Demers said, though he added that this case did not come out of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

“Nevertheless, these two indictments charge overlapping groups of conspirators,” Mr. Demers said. “And they evince the same methods of computer intrusion and the same overarching Russian strategic goal: to pursue its interests through illegal influence and disinformation operations aimed at muddying or altering perceptions of the truth.”

The Justice Department charges unsealed on Thursday primarily focused on allegations that the Russian agents hacked into several antidoping agencies and sporting federations and stole private medical information about roughly 250 athletes from 30 countries. They made that information public, “selectively, and sometimes misleadingly,” in retaliation the revelations of a state-sponsored Russian doping program that had led to its banning from the Olympics, prosecutors said.

With far fewer details, the indictment also charged one of the officers, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov, with creating a fake website and sending spearfishing emails to employees of Westinghouse Electric Company, based near Pittsburgh, who worked on nuclear reactor technology. Westinghouse has supplied Ukraine with nuclear fuel, but Mr. Demers declined to say whether the company’s servers were penetrated or detail the larger aim of that Russian operation.

Eileen Sullivan and Charlie Savage reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from London. Milan Schreuer contributed reporting from Brussels and Ellen Barry from London.