U.S. 'Hasn't Seen' Cyber Escalation by Russians Outside Ukraine - State Department's Cyber Ambassador

Biden administration's top cyber diplomat on Thursday said that the United States has 'not seen' an escalation conducted by the cyber tools used by Russians outside of Ukraine, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"We haven’t seen yet a ton of lateral escalation using cyber means outside Ukraine by the Russians," Nate Fick, the newly appointed ambassador at large to lead the State Department's newly established Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, told TURAN's correspondent during a daily press briefing.

Deterrence, he said, "is working in Europe and across the NATO Alliance."

"Inside Ukraine, I think that there actually has been some meaningful degree of malicious Russian cyber activity, at least that they’ve attempted," he added.  "And I think that one of the reasons that it hasn’t had the impact that the Russians hoped it would have is because of this tight feedback cycle that’s happening between the software vendors and hardware vendors who have stuff deployed in Ukraine and their partnership with the U.S. Government and the Ukrainian Government and NATO to convey that – to accelerate that feedback cycle," he told reporters.

Fick will be the bureau’s first-ever ambassador-at-large following its launch in April. The bureau was established to deal with international issues related to cyber and emerging technologies. It has three policy units: international cyberspace security, digital freedom, and international information and communications policy.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.