Fiona Hill, former Russia adviser to President Donald Trump, said Sunday she is eager to see whether last week’s meeting between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will lead to "serious cyber talks."
When asked if the meeting between the two leaders was worth it, Hill said "we’ll have to see" what comes next. Hill spoke about possible plans for strategic stability talks as the two countries grapple with nuclear weapons, but stressed the significance of future talks about cybersecurity.
"The main problem is really in cyber," Hill said on NBC News’ "Meet the Press." "And that’s where we’re going have to see whether we’re able to actually sit down and have some serious cyber talks. Not just at the working level, but something that takes it up to try to reach some kind of agreement."
Recent ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline and the meat processing giant JBS have been attributed to Russian cybercrime gangs. On Wednesday after meeting with Biden, Putin said the two reached an agreement to consult on cybersecurity but didn’t offer details about what such talks would entail.
"As far as cybersecurity is concerned, we agreed that we would begin consultations on that issue, and I believe that’s extraordinarily important. And obviously both sides have to assume certain obligations there," Putin told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Biden added Wednesday that he gave the Russian leader a list of 16 critical infrastructure entities in the U.S. off-limits to cyberattacks and said the U.S. would "respond with cyber" if Russia were to violate that list. Hill said Biden had essentially drawn a line and warned Putin not to cross it.
"We’ve made those red lines clear in the past to Russia on a number of fronts, not just in cyber, but also in the military realm," Hill said on CBS News’ "Face the Nation."
Hill added: "I think we can also expect that there might be some covert action that might go beyond the 16 areas that are off limits, perhaps ransomware attacks, criminal attacks, something that’s hard to attribute."
House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff doubled down on Biden’s comments, saying he agreed with the president’s assertion about using U.S. cyber capabilities against Russia.
"I do think when he was saying Putin understands we have tremendous cyber capabilities," the California Democrat said on "Face the Nation," "he was sending a message, we won’t hesitate to use them if we need to to protect our industry and to protect our government. And that’s an important message to send."
Schiff pushed for Russia and other countries to be held "accountable" for cyberattacks and said Putin can’t act clueless about cybercrimes committed by Russians.
"I do think that a lot of these hacking groups operating on Russian soil, some of them operating on Chinese or Iranian soil, they have a synergistic relationship with those states, which means we need to hold those states accountable for what these criminal gangs do to attack our industry," Schiff said.
"It’s also not credible for [Putin] to suggest that — that even if he knew they were operating on his soil, that he was powerless to do something about it," he added.
Asked on "Meet the Press" if the meeting in Geneva was a win for Putin, Hill said it was.
"In terms of the of the symbolism of having a sit-down with the American president, absolutely that is a very important win for Putin," Hill said. "But it’s not a win if nothing happens after this. That is just an episodic event. And, you know, he can’t take that to the bank for a long time and cash it in."
Read more: politico.com
