Boris Johnson Doesn’t Want to Talk About the Russia Vaccine Hack
After exposing Russia’s attempt to hack into coronavirus vaccine research, the U.K. and its prime minister seem to have moved on.
(Bloomberg) -- Less than 24 hours after exposing Russia’s attempt to hack into coronavirus vaccine research, the U.K. and its prime minister seem to have moved on.
Boris Johnson failed to mention it at one of his now rare press conferences focused on the pandemic on Friday. He wasn’t even asked about it.
It was an omission that was all the more strange because his government took the lead in accusing Russian intelligence of trying to steal private information from British, American and Canadian researchers racing to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
Johnson has a complicated relationship with the Kremlin. As foreign minister, back in 2017, he visited Moscow and declared that despite the two countries’ disagreements, he was a “committed Russophile.”
But it wasn’t long afterward that the Conservative government he served in pointed the finger directly at Vladimir Putin for ordering the murder of a former double-agent Sergei Skripal in a provincial English city. The poisoning inadvertently killed a British woman and triggered a diplomatic showdown.
‘No Russophobia’
It was the first use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II and Johnson drew a distinction between Putin’s regime and the Russian people. “There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what’s happening,” he said.
Now he is prime minister and the political mood on Russia has significantly soured. Russia stands accused not just of intellectual theft but also of meddling with the 2019 election he wound up winning by a landslide.
Next week another report into Russian interference will be published, by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, and is expected to detail Moscow’s attempts to influence votes -- including during the 2016 Brexit referendum which helped propel Johnson into power.
The prime minister delayed the publication of the report ahead of December’s election and managed to put it off further by refusing to nominate members for the committee behind it until this week. They decided at their first meeting to publish it.
Intelligence sources have suggested the report isn’t as explosive as the opposition hopes, but Johnson’s reluctance for it to be made public has raised criticism. The investigation found no “smoking gun” proving Kremlin-sponsored interference in the past, yet the risk is real, people familiar with its contents told Bloomberg News in November.
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