Moscow-linked hacker group APT29 (Cozy Bear) is involved in a cyber attack on a number of Azerbaijani media outlets, chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament’s commission on countering foreign interventions Ramid Namazov said on 2 May, Azerbaijani media reported.
Namazov called the attacks politically motivated and linked them to the closure of the Russian House in Baku in early February.
“According to an investigation dated 20 February this year, a cyber espionage group called APT29 is completely taking over media resources in their own systems, where it has been secretly operating for about two to three years. As a result of cyber-psychological analysis, it becomes clear where the motive of the attack comes from,” APA news agency quoted the official as saying.
The cyberattack on Azerbaijani media took place in the morning of 20 February. It first targeted the internal servers of Baku TV, which accused Russian House of involvement in espionage, and then spread to a number of news websites.
The Cozy Bear hackers have been linked by several governments and investigative journalism to Russian foreign intelligence. The group has been accused of attacking government agencies and infrastructure in a number of nations. Moscow usually ignores or denies such accusations. Russia has not commented on the accusations from Azerbaijan.
In early February, Azerbaijani authorities announced the closure of the Rossotrudnichestvo representative office in Baku. This came amid a sharp cooling of relations between Baku and Moscow after the crash of an Azerbaijani passenger airliner that came under fire from Russian air defence.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed Russian involvement and criticised the fact that Russian authorities had not claimed responsibility for the incident.
In January, the Azerbaijani-controlled Baku.tv TV channel published a report on the work of the “Russian House” in Azerbaijan, in which it actually accused its employees of unfriendly and even spying activities. The head of “Rossotrudnichestvo” Yevgeny Primakov then defended the centre and said that it was engaged “exclusively in activities in the sphere of education, culture and science”.
The Russian federal agency Rossotrudnichestvo, a subordinate body of the Russian Foreign Ministry, has been on the EU sanctions list since July 2022, but Russian centres of science and culture (Russkiy Dom), which are part of its structure, continue to operate in some European countries.