Dutch government says it disrupted Russian attempt to hack chemical weapons watchdog | Euronews

The Dutch government said they disrupted an attempt in April by the Russian intelligence service (GRU) to hack the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The announcement was made at a news conference on Thursday by Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld who called on Russia "to stop its cyber activities aimed at undermining Western democracies".

According to the head of the Netherlands' military intelligence agency, four Russians were caught with spying equipment in a hotel near the OPCW headquarters in The Hague on April 10.

Around that time, the OPCW was working on verifying the identity of the substance used in the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK.

The four Russians were detained three days later and sent back to Russia, said Dutch Major General Onno Eichelsheim, adding they had planned to travel to a laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, which is used by the chemical weapons watchdog to analyse the samples.

The Russian ambassador to The Netherlands has been summoned to the foreign ministry for an explanation, said Bijleveld.

NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's official Twitter account tweeted "NATO stands in solidarity with the Dutch and UK governments in calling out Russia on its cyber attacks against OPCW."

In September, the OPCW confirmed that the substance that killed 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury, UK, was the same Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals.