Venezuela’s Electric Grid Was Attacked From Abroad: Russia

15 March 2019 — Telesur

Russia said it was ready to cooperate to investigate the blackout and help bring the sabotage plotters to justice.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday her country considers that Venezuela’s blackout was due to a cyber attack from abroad, the same version provided by the Venezuelan government for the massive loss of electric services across most of the country for five days.

RELATED:
Venezuela Blackouts: ‘Straight From the Cyberwar Playbook’

“According to the country’s legitimate government headed by President Nicolas Maduro, as well as to information from other credible sources, Venezuela’s power grid was attacked from abroad,” Zakharova said and pointed out that “it was an attempt to remotely influence control systems at major electrical substations where Canadian-made equipment is installed.”

Last week Maduro denounced that the Venezuelan opposition and its United States allies were behind the blackout, which began Thursday, Feb. 7 and caused multiple damages to the Bolivarian country.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also said that Russia could investigate the cyber attack.

The U.S. has long had highly developed plans involving the use of cyberattacks to attack critical power-grid infrastructure in countries targeted for regime change by Washington. #nitrozeus #VenezuelaBlackout https://t.co/JLTf9nABPv

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson)

March 12, 2019

“If we receive an official request for expert assistance, we will give it proper attention,” Zakharova said in relation to a recent statement by President Maduro’s through which he announced that his country will ask Russia, China, Iran and Cuba to assist in investigating the attack on the electricity grid.

In addition, the Russian senior diplomat said the perpetrators of this aggression against the Venezuelan people are fully responsible for the deaths the blackout caused as many hospitals were left without electricity.

“We hope that this responsibility will sooner or later take the form of a court ruling,” Zakharova stated, as reported by Sputnik.