WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he is “looking” at possible retaliation after the White House linked Russia to a cyberattack against global meat processing giant JBS.
Asked by a reporter if he would take action against President Vladimir Putin, whom he will meet for a summit in Geneva later this month, Biden said: “We’re looking closely at that issue.”
The ransomware attack on a US subsidiary of Brazilian-owned JBS has again prompted accusations that Russia is at least harboring cybercriminals.
Similar suspicions were raised after ransomware hackers forced the temporary shutdown of the huge Colonial fuel pipeline in the eastern United States last month.
Asked if Putin is testing him ahead of their summit, Biden said “no.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday attributed the attack to “REvil and Sodinokibi,” which experts have said are two names for the same hacking group with ties to Russia, and said it was “working diligently to bring the threat actors to justice.”
“We continue to focus our efforts on imposing risk and consequences and holding the responsible cyber actors accountable,” the FBI said in a statement.
The White House says Biden will bring up US concerns during the summit on June 16, as well as at earlier summits with allies in the G7 group, the European Union and NATO.
“We expect this to be an issue of discussion throughout the president’s trip,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
“Harboring criminal entities that are intending to do harm, that are doing harm to the critical infrastructure in the United States, is not acceptable,” she said.
“We’re not going to stand by that. We will raise that and we’re not going to take options off the table.”
The White House has not blamed the Kremlin directly, only suggesting that criminal groups are operating from inside Russia. However, Psaki said “responsible states do not harbor” cybercriminals.
“President Biden certainly thinks that President Putin and the Russian government has a role to play in stopping and preventing these attacks. Hence, it will be a topic of discussion when they meet,” she said.
For its part, Russia said Wednesday it would be open to any US request for help in investigating the cyberattack.
JBS is a sprawling meat supplier with operations in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and Britain.
The company said the vast majority of its beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants would be operating “at near full capacity” on Thursday.
JBS “is not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised,” it said in a statement late Wednesday.
“Given the progress our teams have made to address this situation, we anticipate operating at close to full capacity across our global operations tomorrow (Thursday),” said JBS USA CEO Andre Nogueira.
Biden says ‘looking’ at Russia retaliation over JBS cyberattack
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Biden says ‘looking’ at Russia retaliation over JBS cyberattack
- A ransomware attack on a US subsidiary of Brazilian-owned JBS has again prompted accusations that Russia is at least harboring cybercriminals
Mali says two more army posts attacked as jihadist violence escalates
- Hundreds reported killed in recent attacks across West African country
- Junta has struggled to improve security since seizing power
BAMAKO: Islamist militants hit two more military installations on Wednesday and Thursday, Mali’s army said, the latest in a quick spate of attacks that the insurgents say have killed hundreds of soldiers and underscored their gains.
Ground and air reinforcements were being mobilized on Thursday morning to respond to an attack on a security post in Mahou, located in eastern Mali near the border with Burkina Faso, an army statement said.
The attack was claimed by Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa Al-Muslimin (JNIM), an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group active in Mali and Burkina Faso. Information on a death toll was not immediately available.
A military spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday afternoon, “armed terrorists” struck a military camp in Tessit, near the border with Burkina Faso and Niger, and Mali’s military sent in aerial reinforcement, a separate statement said.
There has been no claim of responsibility for that attack, though security analysts said it could have been perpetrated by fighters from the Islamic State branch active in the Sahel region.
“The camp was attacked, and there was a violent exchange of fire. We learned that the attackers had taken control of the camp, and the population was leaving Tessit,” said an official from the nearby town of Ouattagouna, who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
Widespread attacks
Mali’s junta seized power following coups in 2020 and 2021, promising to restore security in a country that has grappled with jihadist militancy for more than a decade. But attacks continue in large swathes of the country.
An army statement on Thursday described “a resurgence of cowardly and barbaric attacks” in recent weeks and said it was responding with a “counter-offensive,” listing operations in six locations on Wednesday alone.
An attack on Sunday on a military base in Boulkessi, in central Mali near the frontier with Burkina Faso, killed dozens of soldiers, security sources told Reuters this week. JNIM said in a statement the death toll was more than 100 soldiers and mercenaries, with more than 20 others captured.
On Monday, JNIM said it targeted a military airport and Russian mercenaries in the northern city of Timbuktu, where residents described taking cover from explosions and gunfire.
Like neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, Mali has cut military ties with Western nations and turned to Russia for support.
JNIM also claimed to have bombed Malian and Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Bamako on Wednesday, though Reuters could not independently confirm that incident and the army has not commented on it.
Consulting firm Control Risks said in a note on Thursday the claim was “reliable” and that further attacks on and near Bamako were likely as JNIM seeks to undermine Mali’s military rulers.
Brazil’s president accuses Israel of ‘premeditated genocide’ in Gaza
- “It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government,” da Silva said
PARIS: Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday during a trip to Paris accused Israel of carrying out “premeditated genocide” in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.
“It’s a premeditated genocide from a far-right government that is waging a war against the interests of its own people,” he said at a joint press conference with France’s President Emmanuel Macron.
While Lula has previously used the term “genocide,” Macron has refused to, saying last month it was not for a “political leader to use to term but up to historians to do so when the time comes.”
Detained Greenpeace activists to face judge over Macron waxwork
- Activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia
PARIS: Two Greenpeace activists who stole French President Emmanuel Macron’s waxwork from a Paris museum to stage anti-Russia protests have been detained and were set to appear before an investigating judge on Thursday, their lawyer and prosecutors said.
On Monday, several activists stole a 40,000-euro statue of Macron from the Grevin Museum and placed it in front of the Russian embassy and later outside the headquarters of French electricity giant EDF to protest France’s economic ties with Russia.
The statue, estimated to be worth 40,000 euros ($45,500), was returned to police on Tuesday night but two activists, a man and a woman, were detained on Monday, their lawyer Marie Dose said.
Jean-François Julliard, head of Greenpeace France, said that the detained pair were people who drove a truck during the protest in front of the Russian embassy, and not those who “borrowed” the statue from the museum.
“They have spent three nights in a cell,” said Dose, denouncing the detention as “completely disproportionate.”
The lawyer denounced the “deplorable” conditions in which the two activists were being held, “attached to benches for hours and dragged from police station to police station.”
One activist spent the night without a blanket and was unable to lie down because her cell was too small, the lawyer said.
“The other had to sleep on the floor because there were too many people in the cell,” she added.
“This treatment is worrying for Greenpeace activists and raises the question of a dangerous shift in the criminal response to acts of civil disobedience,” she said.
The pair will appear before an investigating magistrate on Thursday as part of a judicial inquiry into the “theft of a cultural object on display,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP.
The judge will decide whether to charge them.
The lawyer argued that “no harm resulted from the non-violent action,” arguing that “all offenses” ceased to exist once the statue has been returned to the museum.
The Grevin Museum filed a complaint on Monday but subsequently took the matter in good humor. “The figures can only be viewed on site,” it said on its Instagram feed.
The activists managed to slip out through an emergency exit of the museum by posing as maintenance workers.
Suspect in murder of Tunisian man to appear before French judge: prosecutors
PARIS: A Frenchman accused of murdering his Tunisian neighbor in the south of France will appear before an anti-terrorism judge on Thursday, the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office said.
Christophe B. is accused of killing Hichem Miraoui in an attack Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described as both “racist” and “anti-Muslim.”
Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the case, the first time a far-right racist attack has been treated as a “terrorist” offense since the unit was created in 2019.
Russia to repair warplanes damaged by Ukraine’s drones
- Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces
- Commercial satellite images showed what appeared to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers
MOSCOW: Russian warplanes were damaged but not destroyed in a June 1 attack by Ukraine, and they will be restored, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
Ukrainian strikes targeted airfields in Siberia and the far north where Russia houses heavy bombers that form part of its strategic nuclear forces.
The United States assesses that up to 20 warplanes were hit and around 10 were destroyed, two US officials said, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But Ryabkov, who oversees arms control diplomacy, told state news agency TASS: “The equipment in question, as was also stated by representatives of the Ministry of Defense, was not destroyed but damaged. It will be restored.”
It was not immediately clear how swiftly Russia could repair or replace the damaged aircraft – if at all – given the complexity of the technology, the age of some of the Soviet-era planes, and Western sanctions that restrict Russian imports of sensitive components.
Commercial satellite imagery taken after the Ukrainian drone attack shows what experts said appear to be damaged Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and Tu-22 Backfire long-range bombers that Russia has used to launch missile strikes against Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that Moscow would have to respond to the attacks, Trump said.
Russia has an estimated fleet of 67 strategic bombers, including 52 Tu-95s, known as Bear-H by NATO, and 15 Tu-160s, known as Blackjacks, of which about 58 are thought to be deployed, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
In addition, it has 289 non-strategic fighters and bombers, including Tu-22s, Su-24s, Su-34s and MiG-31s, according to the Bulletin. Russia has given no detail about which aircraft were damaged but said that Ukraine targeted five air bases.
