Russian Experts, Media Say Cyber Attack and Anti-Iran Escalation Aim To Scuttle a Trump-Putin Meeting

June 18, 2019 (EIRNS)—The Russian daily Kommersant published an article headlined “Putin-Trump Meeting in Limbo Due to New York Times ‘Leak’ on U.S. Hacker Attacks,” which reports that “Experts told Kommersant that the new leak was aimed at provoking Moscow’s confrontational stance and undermining the normalization of Russian-U.S. ties,” reported TASS in its press review today. Kommersant pointed out that

“a similar situation occurred a year ago ahead of the Helsinki summit between the two Presidents, when the American media reported on Russia’s alleged hacker attacks against the U.S. power grid. As a rule, such stories about hackers resonate widely, and it is almost impossible to either confirm or deny them. ‘That’s why this is the best tool for creating a background for a new confrontation,’ said Director of the Franklin Roosevelt U.S. Policy Studies Center at Moscow State University Yuri Rogulev.”

A second expert quoted by Kommersant, the Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov, stated: “By seeking to preempt and set a confrontational tone for a new Putin-Trump meeting, the adversaries of the U.S. President, who are pursuing their own political ambitions, dealt a blow to their own security services, by actually confirming their sabotage activity against Russia.”