(Photo : ANGELA WEISS,ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP via Getty Images)
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on June 07, 2021 shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaking with US NBC news network anchor Megyn Kelly at the Kremlin on March 1, 2018 in Moscow and US President Joe Biden delivering remarks on his plan to administer Covid-19 vaccines at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware on January 15, 2021. - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on June 4, 2021 he is hoping to improve deeply damaged ties with the United States when he holds his first summit with US counterpart Joe Biden later this month. The face-to-face meeting in Geneva on June 16 comes amid the biggest crisis in ties between the two countries in years, with tensions high over a litany of issues including hacking allegations, human rights and election meddling.
A Russian-intelligence insider could be a crucial support in helping the United States government crackdown on the case of Moscow's alleged hacking of the 2016 presidential elections.
The individual, identified as Vladislav Klyushin, was extradited to the United States on insider trading charges in December. The report, which was released on Monday, cited unnamed sources that had close ties to the Russian government and called Klyushin the "highest level Kremlin insider handed to U.S. law enforcement in recent memory."
Russian Hacking
Just 18 months ago, the Russian-intelligence insider was given a medal of honor by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Additionally, the sources in the report said that Russian intelligence has concluded that Klyushin had access to documents related to Moscow's campaign to hack into servers of the Democratic Party in 2016.
The report also suggested that Russia made subsequent efforts to leak damaging information to the press in an attempt to support former United States President Donald Trump's chances at winning the presidency during the elections. The documents would suggest that the Russian military intelligence led the hack and would be the best evidence that proves the Russian government had a hand in the incident, MarketWatch reported.
The documents that Klyushin had access to that were related to the 2016 Russian hack showed that the team responsible for the endeavor were called "Fancy Bear" or APT28. In filings made by the United States, Europeans, and Switzerland, the individual's path to the U.S., his flight from Moscow, his arrest in Switzerland, and his imprisonment in jail while the Russian and the American government competed over his extradition, were detailed.
More than a half-dozen people, who requested anonymity, spoke about Moscow's efforts and its causes for concern. The accounts suggest that American and UK spy agencies approached Klyushin within the two years before he left Russia and received heightened levels of security in Switzerland.
2016 US Elections
Klyushin also missed his last chance to appeal his extradition, something that many observers in Moscow were baffled with. Several of the people also said that the individual's transfer to the U.S. represented a serious intelligence blow to the Kremlin, The Print reported.
They warned that the situation would grow direr for the Russian government if Klyushin decides to seek leniency from U.S. prosecutors in exchange for providing information about the inner workings of Moscow. Three of the anonymous sources said that Klyushin had access to secret records of other high-level GRU operations working internationally.
In recent years, Russian military intelligence agents have been linked to a series of hacking attacks and the attempts of chemical poisoning assassination of dissident ex-GRU colonel Sergei Skripal and his daughter while they were in the UK in 2018. The Russian government has denied all involvement in the case.
U.S. filings showed indications of Klyushin's vantage point with his IT firm, M-13, working for the Russian presidency, government, and ministries. A former military intelligence official named Ivan Yermakov was one of the individual's subordinates. The individual was charged alongside his boss in the indictment, the Japan Times reported.
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