The UK government has been practicing large-scale cyberattacks that could cause black outs across Russia, British officials say, amid an ongoing war of words between the two sides over a range of foreign policy issues.
London has taken an aggressive line with Moscow over the past months, accusing it of increased submarine activity near British waters, poisoning a former Russian double-agent and more importantly, carrying out regular hacking attacks against British infrastructure.
The Sunday Times first broke the news of the secret drills, citing unnamed officials familiar with the matter.
“If they sank our aircraft carrier with a nuclear-tipped torpedo, what is our response? There’s nothing between sinking their submarine and dropping a nuclear weapon on northern Kamchatka,” one official said.
“This is why cyber is so important; you can go on the offensive and turn off the lights in Moscow to tell them that they are not doing the…