Vladimir Putin convened a meeting dedicated to cybersecurity

Russian President Vladimir Putin will chair a meeting on Wednesday dedicated to cybersecurity, attended by ministers, senior security officials, the head of Sberbank and Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Central Bank of Russia. The Kremlin says the meeting is taking place against the backdrop of growing threats associated with emerging technologies and is not directly related to recent drone attacks on data centers in Russia.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said artificial intelligence brings benefits and increases efficiency, but can be weaponized by various states. In his view, these risks could affect entire sectors of the economy, and Russia must be prepared to address them.

Peskov denied that the meeting had been convened in response to last week's Ukrainian drone attacks, which targeted four Russian data centers: three belonging to technology group Yandex and one to Sberbank. The official described the incident as specific and isolated and insisted that Putin's discussion has a “much more systemic” character. The meeting aims to assess cybersecurity challenges and coordinate the response of the Russian authorities.