By Yael Halon
Russian President Vladimir Putin is "most definitely" testing President Biden with Moscow-based cyberattacks targeting U.S. interests ahead of the upcoming U.S.-Russia summit, Fox News senior strategic analyst and retired Army Gen. Jack Keane told "The Story" Wednesday.
The latest ransomware assault this week shut down the U.S.-based meat plants of the world’s largest meatpacker, Brazil-based JBS, and the White House said a criminal group likely based in Russia is thought to be responsible for the ransomware attack.
"What is really happening here which is something the country has to come to grips here, particularly the government in dealing with this and also educate the American people, that Russia and our adversaries are conducting massive cyber-warfare campaigns to undermine Western democracies and disrupt the institutions in those democracies and the people's confidence in them with a particular focus on the United States," Keane explained.
The retired four-star general said Russia has allocated government resources and its military intelligence unit to engage in "significant government hacking like they did in our elections and they do with solar winds."
"They also hire cybercriminals to do hacking for them," Keane said.
Biden is expected to raise the issue with Putin during their summit in Geneva later this month. Keane said the White House must explicitly "call them [Russia] out on it" and take aggressive action to prevent further attacks.
"Do what we did in 2018 and 2020 when they undermined our elections. Attack them back," he said. "President Trump admitted that we took those actions. Hopefully, we're taking that action.
"Secondly," Keane explained, "what they did last month in the Colonial Pipeline, we should have sanctioned them for that and gone after their oil and gas industry and hurt them. They have to pay a price for it. It's absurd to disassociate the Russian government from widespread criminal activity."
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