MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/: Moscow warns the UK against provoking a cyber arms race, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday, commenting on UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who said that London will carry out cyberattacks against hostile states that would attempt to harm the United Kingdom - including against Russia.
"We urge our opponents not to lose their heads and not to provoke a new cyber arms race," she said.
"For many years, the idea of a necessity to ramp up offensive means in informational and cyberspace has been introduced in NATO member states’ public conscience, under the pretext of countering threats allegedly coming from our country - not Russia alone, but Russia gets mentioned, probably, more often than any other state," the diplomat noted.
Zakharova underscored that Russia consistently opposed the militarization of the informational space and advocated using the information and communication technologies for peaceful goals only.
"This is our priority. We repeatedly proposed - to our British partners, in particular - to hold bilateral expert consultations. However, London prefers such hostile, aggressive and simply unbalanced statements and groundless outbursts at Russia to constructive specialized contacts," she added.
"Moscow proposes to cooperate on the entire spectrum of international informational security issues instead of resorting to aggressive rhetoric," the diplomat concluded.
