German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed her country has “hard evidence” that Russia carried out a cyber attack on Germany's parliament and the hacking of her private emails in 2015, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Merkel spoke about the incident with MPs and said she is “pained” by this “outrageous” attack by Russia, a country she thinks she worked “every day” to have good relations with.
German media reported the Federal Republic is interested in the extradition of 29-year-old alleged hacker Dmitry Badin who is said to work for Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) from Russia, yet Russian authorities refused the request and admit no wrongdoing.
Badin is among twelve Russian nationals indicted by the US for hacking into the Democratic Party servers in 2016, an attempt the Americans view as attempting to interfere with their election process.
Merkel, who was raised in Eastern Germany, won awards for her mastery of Russian language as a school girl and is one of the few world leaders that can speak Russian well.It is a little known fact that when she meets Russian President Vladimir Putin, he speaks to her in German, a language he knows well having served as a KGB officer in Germany, and she responds in Russian, the New Yorker reported.