London: Russia has launched a "dirty tricks" campaign against Britain and the US in the wake of the Syria airstrikes, according to British government sources.
Whitehall confirmed a 20-fold increase in "disinformation" being spread by Kremlin-linked social media "bot" accounts since the missile attacks on Syria in the early hours of Saturday. There are fears that this could be a precursor to a full-scale campaign of cyber attacks by Moscow, with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson saying Britain would take "every possible precaution" to guard against it.
Russia, which backs the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had repeatedly warned in the build-up to the cruise missile strikes that there would be consequences if they went ahead, and Johnson told the BBC's Andrew Marr that Russia "gives us every possible signal and evidence that we have to beware".
Asked if he was worried about cyber attacks on the National Health Service (NHS), the National Grid and other infrastructure, Johnson said: "I think we have to take every possible precaution and when you look at what Russia has done, not just in this country in Salisbury but the attacks on TV stations, on the democratic processes, on the critical national infrastructure, of course we have to be very, very cautious indeed."
The Pentagon said there had been a surge in Russian "troll" accounts promoting false claims about the missile attacks, including that 70 per cent of the missiles had been shot down.
"The Russian disinformation campaign has already begun. There has been a 2,000 per cent increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours," a Pentagon spokesman Dana White said.
A Whitehall source said Russia was engaging in a "dirty tricks" campaign, while Government sources said officials would be analysing Kremlin-linked social media "bot" accounts in the coming days to assess the extent to which Britain had been targeted by them.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was France that persuaded US President Donald Trump to stay in Syria and launch air strikes as punishment for the alleged chemical attack.
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