UK says Russians tried to interfere in 2019 election

Bloomberg

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK believes Russians tried to meddle in last year’s general election by disseminating documents relating to trade talks with the US.
The opposition Labour Party released the documents to the press on November 27 last year, during the election campaign, saying they showed Prime Minister Boris Johnson was prepared to put the country’s National Health Service on the table in the talks.
“It is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked government documents,” Raab said in a statement to Parliament on Thursday.
The Foreign Secretary stopped short of directly accusing the Russian government of being behind the leak, and said there is “no evidence of a broad spectrum Russian campaign” against the election. The documents were obtained earlier in 2019 and re-circulated during the campaign, he said.
There is an “ongoing criminal investigation,” Raab said, without saying who is conducting it or whether it is into the original leak of the document or its dissemination.
The announcement came on Thursday, the government said, because Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which needed to be briefed on it first, has only just been formed.
The committee’s first decision was that it will publish a long-awaited report into Russia’s interference in Britain, which was completed last year. Johnson effectively blocked its publication before the election.
The prime minister’s spokesman James Slack said on Thursday it is “nonsense” to suggest Raab’s statement was intended to muddy the waters around the publication of that report.
The Labour Party, whose leader at the election, Jeremy Corbyn, was replaced by Keir Starmer in April, said it is ready to work with the government to protect British democracy.
“We condemn any attempt by Russia, or any foreign power, to interfere in our country’s democratic processes,” the party said in a statement. “Labour stands ready to work cross-party to protect our nation’s security. That includes in our response to the publication of the long-awaited report by the Intelligence Security Committee on the Russian threat to the UK.”

Russians trying to steal vaccine: US, UK, Canada
Bloomberg

Russian state intelligence is hacking international research centres that are racing to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, the UK, US and Canadian governments said.
It is unclear whether research facilities have been damaged or if the vaccine programs have been set back as a result of the hacks but officials warned that the cyber attacks are ongoing.
In a dramatic statement on Thursday, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said vaccine and therapeutic sectors in multiple countries have been targeted by a group known as APT29, which it said is “almost certainly” part of Russian state intelligence.
Security agencies in the US and Canada later issued their own statements backing up the findings.
“It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.