NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that the alliance will sign an agreement with Ukraine to strengthen their cooperation in combating cyber-attacks, which will give Kiev access to the expertise of allies in combating “malicious programmes”.
For his part, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the EU “is mobilizing all its resources to help Kiev in the wake of the cyber attack on government websites.”
Borrell confirmed that the European Union’s political and security committee would hold an urgent meeting to discuss the attack, which he said “deserves condemnation.”
Borrell told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of EU foreign ministers that the EU’s rapid electronic response unit had been activated, adding: “We are mobilizing all our resources to help Ukraine deal with this type of cyber attack.”
All EU governments were asked to participate, even if Ukraine is not a member of the bloc, Borrell said.
On Friday, a number of government websites in Ukraine were subjected to a major information attack, the authorities announced, at a time when tension escalated between Kiev and Moscow.
Swedish Foreign Minister Anne Linde said the cyber attack was “exactly the kind of thing that we were warned about and that we were afraid of”.
She added that the attack “raises tensions, so we must be very careful in our response to Russia.”
“If there are attacks on Ukraine, we will be firm, strong and firm in our response,” she added.
For her part, German Foreign Minister Annalina Birbock said that relations with Russia must now be dealt with patiently and calmly, explaining, “We are doing everything necessary to avoid any further escalation,” according to “AFP”.
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