That Russia’s security services have been targeting British politicians and other high-profile figures won’t come as a surprise. But the scale of the accusations levelled today at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) by the British government is still shocking. GCHQ has said that, since 2015, Russia has carried out hundreds of hacks against MPs, journalists and civil servants. Former trade secretary Liam Fox and the ex head of MI6 Richard Dearlove are among the victims.

British intelligence revealed a surprising amount of detail about the FSB unit responsible for this hacking activity. The group allegedly goes by the name ‘Star Blizzard’ and belongs to the FSB’s Centre 18. This unit, based in the FSB’s notorious headquarters at the Lubyanka in Moscow, is responsible for the FSB’s counterintelligence and supposedly investigates cyber crime – although as today’s news suggests, this is likely a smokescreen for more nefarious activity. Two Russian citizens, Ruslan Aleksandrovich Peretyatko and Andrey Stanislavovich Korinets, who are thought to be part of Centre 18, will be sanctioned, the Foreign Office has said.

The Kremlin has remained curiously tight-lipped

The hackers have been using a tactic known as ‘spear-phishing’: deploying fake identities to target individuals through their personal email addresses to build up rapport before tricking them into allowing malware (usually disguised as innocent website links) to invade their computers and steal information.

The Foreign Office said it had summoned the Russian ambassador Andrey Kelin to provide an explanation. Somewhat undermining the gravity of the situation, the ambassador reportedly said he was busy, sending his deputy instead. While perhaps a mere coincidence, it makes all too clear the disintegration of diplomatic relations between Russia and the UK more broadly since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin, usually quick to brand such accusations of democratic interference as Western smear campaigns, has remained curiously tight-lipped on the matter so far. While the British sanctions against Korinets and Peretryatko have been reported on in the Russian state media, the specific hacking allegations made against them have been left out or skimmed over briefly. The Russian Embassy in London has been tweeting furiously about financial sanctions introduced by the UK yesterday, but they have made no mention of today’s accusations.

Inevitably, if the Kremlin even chooses to acknowledge the UK’s hacking accusations, it will deny all state involvement. But this is not the first time Russia has tried to wage cyber warfare against Western democracies.

Famously, during the American presidential election in 2016 Russia was accused of stealing and leaking emails relating to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. There were also concerns that Russia had spread disinformation during the Brexit referendum, although this has never definitively been proven.

While the hacking unit responsible has only been identified today, the documents stolen by them from Liam Fox in 2019 were reported upon at the time. Ultimately they made their way into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 general election, leading to accusations Russia had also attempted to meddle with that election’s outcome.

Over the past decade, cyber warfare and the spreading of disinformation has become a pillar of the Kremlin’s malign activity abroad. The tactic forms part of a wider campaign to sow discord and distrust in the West and destabilise those democracies that Putin sees as a threat to his own authoritarian model of rule.

Given that relations between Russia and the UK have been steadily declining since the invasion of Crimea in 2014, it would frankly have been a surprise if Russia had never attempted such meddling here. Nevertheless, bearing in mind how long this Russian hacking activity has been going on for, the government has clearly been biding its time to expose it.

Commenting on the UK’s decision to expose Russia’s activity, Foreign Secretary David Cameron, who was prime minister at the time this hacking is said to have begun, said ‘we are exposing their malign attempts at influence and shining a light on yet another example of how Russia chooses to operate on the global stage.’

Next year marks a big year for politics, with both the US and UK – two of Ukraine’s most powerful allies in the war against Russia – heading to the polls. This is perhaps why the government has chosen to go public: both elections will be fought bitterly on all sides, even without foreign interference. Britain will have a tall task on its hands preventing the Kremlin from meddling any further.