Hacking The Vote: Russia Wins, America Loses
Russia has finally issued a response to the allegations of hacking American government servers and it proved to be a very unsubtle one.
Sergei Lavrov, the Kremlin’s unofficial spokesman and Vladimir Putin’s right hand man as Foreign Minister (pictured) was scathing in his rebuke to claims his country was trying to swing the upcoming US election Donald Trump’s way through cyber invasion. He described the accusations in an interview with CNN as “flattering.”
“It’s flattering, of course, to get this kind of attention – for a regional power, as President Obama called us some time ago – Now everybody in the United States is saying that it is Russia that it is Russia which is running the Presidential election”
The point was punctuated in typically passive aggressive terms.
“We have not seen a single fact, a single proof.”
His statement seems to fly in the face of an FBI report which, although now proven to be unsubstantiated though plausible, blamed the Russian government for the invasion of American governmental cyberspace. Furthermore, perhaps ironically, it does finally show that despite claims from both Trump and Lavrov Moscow does have a preferred 45th president in mind and their name is not Hilary Clinton.
In the second presidential debate Trump strenuously denied any involvement or affection for Russia, and especially Putin. Clearly he has not quite worked out the power of the internet, despite repeatedly mentioning Mrs Clinton’s email scandal in interviews and debates. Within minutes of making a statement saying “I don’t know Russia, I don’t have any property there” internet trolls had posted videos of him openly praising Putin’s style of leadership.
This clearly means that in terms of Russia’s relationship with the US would benefit far more from a Trump presidency than a second Clinton one but in all honesty from the way Lavrov behaved in the interview, and he has long been known to reflect to the letter his president’s thoughts, that the former does not really care.In an official statement from the White House, the US government said their response to this perceived attack by the old enemy as “proportional” without specifying exactly what measures they were prepared to take.
Lavrov’s response summed up their attitude succinctly.
“It’s not worth, I believe, speculating. If they decided to do something, let them do it. But to say that Russia is interfering in the United States’ domestic matters is ridiculous.”
He then proceeded to echo the Reoublican candidate’s mantra “There are so many pussies around {the American} presidential campaign on both sides and I prefer not to comment.”
And so this diplomatic spat has come to a stalemate. Perhaps the Russians are just being nonchalant despite being behind a serious breach of security for the most powerful nation in the western world or perhaps Trump is right, perhaps it really is “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
Either way, it appears that the situation will not resolve itself, but that does not necessarily mean that a resolution will need to be found as long as the Kremlin cares so little about what they see as a petty quarrel.
JM-H
