< p>Cybersecurity and infrastructure in Germany are under "serious threat” from countries such as Russia and China, the country's Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Politico's European edition reports.
"As we all know, the main causes of attacks of this kind that affect our cyber security come from Russia,”, Scholz pointed out. "And of course they also come from China from time to time. And this should not be hidden“.
The United States said on Tuesday evening that a major Chinese hack of global telecommunications providers was "ongoing". There was also an outage following the failure of two undersea fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea, raising suspicions of sabotage.
In a separate incident, the crew of a Russian ship allegedly fired flares at a Bundeswehr helicopter in the Baltic Sea, according to a report by German news agency DPA.
"We have to make a lot of effort to arm ourselves against such attacks," stressed Scholz, when asked about the latest incidents. "Security agencies should also try to clear as many of them as possible and prevent them from continuing.“
The head of Germany's foreign intelligence warned last week that senior officials in the Russian defense ministry doubted whether NATO countries would stick to a mutual defense clause enshrined in the NATO treaty.
Moscow could, for example, stage a limited intervention under the pretext of protecting Russian minorities in NATO-allied territories – thereby testing the viability of the so-called Article 5, in the hope that it would lead to the dissolution of the Alliance.
Asked about the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, Scholz said that decisions could not be made "over the head of Ukraine" but that it was up to Kiev to consider how to proceed - "in conversation with its best friends and allies".
In view of his solo diplomatic intervention, which included an hour-long phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the center-left politician added: "The Russian president has not shown that he wants to do anything towards peace.