The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia is ready to resume operations, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, after Ukraine repaired the damage from a Russian attack. Kyiv now expects the EU to unlock a €90bn EU loan after Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán, spent months blocking it. Orbán is about to leave office after losing badly in national elections.
“There can now be no grounds for blocking it,” said Ukraine’s president, referring to the loan. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, speaking after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday, said she expected a positive decision on the loan within 24 hours. Reuters, quoting an industry source, said pumping oil through the pipeline would resume on Wednesday.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on Europe to diversify energy supplies and not resume flows via Druzhba from Russia. “No one can currently guarantee that Russia will not repeat attacks on the pipeline infrastructure,” he said on Tuesday.
Guns were fired as Ukrainian authorities arrested military draft officers in Odesa for allegedly snatching people from the street and extorting money using the threat of being sent straight to the frontline. The Security Service of Ukraine said four officers working for the local territorial recruitment centre – which carries out conscription and recruitment – were detained after agents including special forces shot at the tyres of a vehicle in which they tried to escape. The group was being investigated for extortion, said the SBU. “The perpetrators face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.”
Moscow is taking its Ukraine war tactics and techniques “beyond the battlefield” to target the UK and Europe in cyberspace, the head of Britain’s cybersecurity force at GCHQ will say on Wednesday. Richard Horne will point to “sustained Russian hybrid activity” and warn that companies must learn how it is done in order to defend themselves. Horne is head of the national cybersecurity centre at Britain’s signals intelligence agency. He is due to speak at the CyberUK conference in the Scottish city of Glasgow.
In recent months, Sweden, Poland, Denmark and Norway have all reported hackers linked to Russia have targeted their critical infrastructure including power plants and dams. Horne will say that in Britain the NCSC currently handles around four “nationally significant” cyber incidents a week with the most serious threat coming from cyber-attacks carried out directly or indirectly by other states. He mentioned Russia, China and Iran.
In a conflict, Horne will say, the UK would probably face cyber-attacks “at scale” but – unlike with ransomware deployed by organised criminal hackers – companies would not be able to pay their way out. For that reason, he will say, every organisation needs to understand the “full extent” of the risk they face and improve their cyber defences.
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