The implications of an attack on an international organization by the Russian government could reach geopolitical territory

On October 4, the Dutch intelligence service foiled an attack on the headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague. Four Russian secret service officials were arrested for an attack on the agency's Wi-Fi network and subsequently deported.

Leer en español: ¿Por qué Rusia es acusada de ataques cibernéticos contra la OPAQ?

There is a tension between Russia and the OPCW that explains the reason for the attack. The former Russian spy, Serguei Skripal, was poisoned along with his daughter in March of this year in Salisbury, England; both victims survived the attack.

Skripal served as a double agent for the British intelligence agency MI6. According to The Financial Times, for his collaboration with British intelligence, he was tried in 2004 by Russian military courts for revealing the identity of nearly 300 agents.

The substance with which he was attacked had an unknown origin and for this reason, the OPCW intervened to identify it. This organization is responsible for enforcing the guidelines of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Among its faculties, it can act as an advisory agency for cases such as Skripal. Thus, after the analysis of the poison, it was determined that the substance came from Russia, because its manufacturing peculiarities only occur in Russian military installations.

Background of the OPCW

In 2013, the OPCW received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work in Syria, in the context of attacks with sarin gas in the town of Guta. On August 21 of that year, at least 281 people died according to figures from French intelligence, but the numbers may vary depending on the source.

Russia, in defense of its allied government in Syria, has questioned the methodology of the OPCW, more recently after the tests carried out in the city of Duma to check if another chemical attack had taken place. The governments of Vladimir Putin and that of Bashar al-Asad have accused West society of trying to intervene in the work of the OPCW for political reasons.

An example of this was the words of Alexander Shulguín, Russian ambassador to the OPCW, who told the same organization that its investigations could not be trusted because they have a "geographical imbalance" among its members. According to the Russian state portal Sputnik, the ambassador said that "[t]he reason for doubting the impartiality of the FFM is that the mission was recently led by two Brits".

What are the implications not only of the attacks, but of this tension that already enters IGNORE INTO geopolitical terrain?

The OPCW is in the midst of a struggle for hegemony, on the one hand the United States and its allies (in this case France and Great Britain) and on the other, Russia (along with Iran and Syria). It is not about seeing this situation under the light of the Cold War, because this would be anachronistic, but one does not have to be naive when observing the interests of the powers acting in geopolitics.

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The OPCW proved that the poison administered to Skripal came from Russia, just as the Dutch found in flagrante the Russian spies and the Kremlin has opposed the Western presence within the organism. All these are proofs of the struggle to establish Russian interests at the international level.

Now, that does not mean West societies are not playing the same game. Skripal was recruited by British intelligence, along with more agents of the Russian government to do counterintelligence. The point is that an agency like the OPCW should operate independently. The Russian ambassador himself said it, the Western influence is within the organism; as well as the Russians try to get involved with the work of this.

The attack on the Hague barracks is a problem because it highlights how little can be trusted in international institutions. They are under the attack of the interests of the powers and that can only hinder the search to reduce chemical weapons in the world. Ambassador Shulguín may have a point in his claims, because the lack of balance in the staff of international organizations can be instrumentalized in the interests of the powers.

LatinAmerican Post | Iván Parada Hernández
Translated from “¿Por qué Rusia es acusada de ataques cibernéticos contra la OPAQ?”

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