The National Office for Veterans was targeted in December by a cyberattack, according to information from BFMTV. Several sources accuse Russia and experts believe that Moscow wants to use members of the French army as relays for the Kremlin.
France targeted by Moscow? While France has been the victim of cyberattacks for several weeks, the National Office for Veterans and War Victims is affected in turn. The hackers attacked the servers, software and databases of ONACVG.
It took a month for the army services to stop this attack, but this is the first time that an entity of the Ministry of the Armed Forces has been attacked in this way.
The data of French soldiers in the sights of Moscow
According to information from BFMTV, the hackers got very close to a sensitive file: that of the fighter’s card. The Office has lodged a complaint, the investigation is underway and the ministry does not communicate officially on this point.
The document is currently held by “several hundred thousand people in France” and contains “personal data”, according to Colonel Michel Goya, Defense consultant for BFMTV.
Thanks to the information contained in the file, in particular the telephone numbers of combatants and former soldiers, the Russians could have come into contact with members of the French army.
Something to worry about the Grande Muette. Vice-Admiral Patrick Chevallereau is sounding the alarm by evoking “former French soldiers (who) contribute to the interests of the Kremlin”, in a column published Thursday in The JDD.
High-ranking officers as Kremlin relays
Among the men suspected of having close ties with Moscow: Colonel Jacques Hogard, very active on social networks and who regularly shares tweets from the Russian Embassy in France, or Colonel Alain Corvez who was one of the observers sent to Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, to oversee the annexation referendums organized by Russia, the validity of which has been widely questioned by many experts.
There is also the lieutenant-colonel of the gendarmerie and member of the National Rally (RN) Jean-Michel Cadenas. The soldier did not hesitate to post a message on Twitter in which he claimed that the French ambassador to Ukraine had resigned, which was completely false.
The former soldier Xavier Moreau, who has become spokesman for the Kremlin, is also added to the list. Became a Russian citizen, according to Challengeshe relayed Vladimir Putin’s speech via a Youtube channel, closed at the end of 2022.
“Technical credibility” for Russia
But why such recruitment in the ranks of the French army? According to some experts, these soldiers serve as a mouthpiece for Moscow. “It gives a certain military technical credibility to which we grant a form of legitimacy to a hidden agenda which sometimes voluntarily or involuntarily serves the interests of the Kremlin”, estimates with BFMTV Patrick Chevallereau, member of the Open Diplomacy institute.
The Russian cyberattack is yet another example of Moscow’s hybrid warfare.
