Act of an enemy: Chemical weapons watchdog plot

The view that Russia is an increasingly malign force happy to undermine the institutions we all depend on strengthened yesterday when it was reported that the Netherlands foiled a plot by Russian military intelligence to launch a cyber attack against the international chemical weapons watchdog based in The Hague.

The four Russian agents involved have been expelled.

The report offers worrying context to reports, dismissed at the time by the Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov, that the Garda intelligence unit suspected that proposals to build a new Russian embassy in Dublin were provoked by the growing presence of international IT companies in Ireland.

These intrusions pale into insignificance when compared to Russian interference in America’s presidential election and the Brexit vote too. As further sanctions seem all but inevitable, it seems

that

the €722m record in exports from Ireland to Russia set in 2014 will stand for the foreseeable future.

In a world where the US has become unreliable and the EU is weakened by Brexit, apprehension is unavoidable.