If US Says It Wants Cybersecurity Dialogue, “We Won’t Keep It Waiting” — Oleg Syromolotov

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov has said that if the United States decides to get back to cybersecurity talks, “Russia will not keep it waiting.”

“To be frank, we have no illusions about the readiness of the American side to negotiate and develop international cybersecurity agreements. For this, Washington is to clearly express its political will. As soon as this happens, it will not find us waiting. I hope that the US administration is aware of the risks of a further escalation of tensions in the cyberspace space and the fact that there are no alternatives to negotiated solutions,” he told TASS in an interview.

Syromolotov said Russia had to acknowledge that no dialogue was in progress with the United States on the international information security agenda at the moment. He recalled that in March 2022, without providing any explanations, Washington unilaterally terminated the dialogue between the Kremlin and the White House, launched in 2021 in pursuance of the Geneva agreements between the presidents of the two countries.

“Instead of looking for political and diplomatic solutions, the US administration, in tandem with its allies, began to rubberstamp vocal statements about Russia’s allegedly illegal actions in the global cyberspace. Naturally, without any evidence to rely on. It is trying to make us look as the main instigator of cyberattacks against ‘democracies’,” he said.

“The United States indulges in Russophobic propaganda on international platforms, too. By replicating no end of unfounded accusations, it is trying to oust our country from the key negotiating mechanisms. Its aim is to snatch intellectual leadership in the field of information security away from Russia, to remove us from the process of coordinating universal agreements. This is well seen in the refusal to issue visas to the leadership of Russia’s delegation to the second session of the UN Open-Ended Working Group on IIS (in New York on March 28 – April 1, 2022 – TASS),” Syromolotov said.