Even if you ignore the number of “shirtless Putin riding a bear” memes, the Kremlin appears to be on a lucky streak at the moment. Russia’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court was met internationally with a muted lack of surprise. The Assad regime, with Russian support, are taking back Aleppo. And then there are the accusations by the US intelligence community that Russian hackers played a significant role in the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election by hacking into the Democratic candidate’s emails.
This is not the first time a state has appeared to hack into the US authorities’ networks – since 2003 there have been coordinated attacks, labelled “Titan Rain”, attributed to hackers employed by the Chinese military. As the White House commented last Friday, there were even intrusions into the 2008 election campaigns. The difference in this case is that the “intelligence community made very clear that this was activity directed by the highest levels of the Russian government”.
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