Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

White House spokeswoman Sanders to get Secret Service protection: source

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House press secretary Sarah Sanders will get Secret Service protection after she was asked to leave a restaurant in southern Virginia in protest of President Donald Trump’s policies, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The source did not provide details. The Secret Service and the White House both declined to confirm the matter.

NBC News, which first reported that Sanders would get protection, said security would be provided at her home on a temporary basis, citing a law enforcement official.

Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, on Friday because she worked for Trump. The owner later confirmed the reasoning to media, and the incident drew praise and condemnation online for the restaurant.

The incident prompted Twitter attacks from the president on Monday.

Trump lashed out at Democratic U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, who told a crowd in California on Sunday that the Red Hen’s actions should be a model for resisting the president’s administration.

Tensions have risen over the Republican president’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that initially led to migrant children being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, said the protection was related to other threats Sanders has received.

“Well, it’s not so much related to the Red Hen as it is to other threats and you got to remember, she has three small children and there have been some nasty things,” Mike Huckabee said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Gregorio and Bernadette Baum)

Supreme Court rules against unions over non-member fees

FILE PHOTO: Trees cast shadows outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Toya Sarno Jordan/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday dealt a blow to organized labor, ruling that non-members cannot be forced in certain states to pay fees to unions representing public employees such as teachers and police, shutting off a key union revenue source.

On a 5-4 vote powered by the court’s conservative majority, the justices overturned a 1977 Supreme Court precedent that had allowed the so-called agency fees that are collected from millions of non-union workers in lieu of union dues to fund non-political activities like collective bargaining.

The ruling means that the estimated 5 million non-union workers who pay these fees will no longer have to do so.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Iran’s top leader says harm to economy must be punished

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in Tehran June 12, 2009. REUTERS/Caren Firouz/File Photo

By Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iran’s Supreme Leader demanded the judiciary punish those “who disrupt economic security” on Wednesday, following protests over the rial’s collapse and a tightening of U.S. sanctions pressure that has set the arch-foes further on a course of confrontation.

Resolutely opposed to Iran’s nuclear program and its role in Syria’s war, Washington is to reimpose economic penalties on Tehran in coming months after quitting an accord in which sanctions were lifted in return for curbs on its atomic work.

This may cut Iran’s hard currency earnings from oil exports, and the prospect has provoked a flight of Iranians’ savings from the rial into dollars.

In the latest U.S. push against Tehran, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday that countries buying oil from Iran should prepare to halt all imports of it starting in November or face punishment.

At Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Wednesday, business was back to normal after a two-day strike had closed most shops. On Monday traders had massed outside parliament to complain about the plunge to record lows of Iran’s currency.

Reuters was unable to verify footage showing police clashing with protesters. Public demonstrations are rare in Iran but in recent months there have been several over the state of the economy.

“The atmosphere for the work, life and livelihood of the people must be secure,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with judiciary officials, according to his official website.

“And the judiciary must confront those who disrupt economic security.”

Following Washington’s withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, some U.S. sanctions are due to be reimposed in August and some in November.

IMPORT COSTS RISE

This has caused the rial to collapse, threatening business by driving up the cost of imports. The rial traded at 78,500 against the dollar in the unofficial market on Wednesday, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com. This compares to around 43,000 at the end of last year.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned Iran it would face the “wrath of the entire world” if it pursued nuclear weapons, but added that he hoped it would never be necessary for the United States to take military action against the country.

On Wednesday, Pompeo accused Iran’s leaders of wasting the country’s resources on its proxies in the Middle East.

“It should surprise no one #IranProtests continue. People are tired of the corruption, injustice & incompetence of their leaders. The world hears their voice,” he tweeted.

Reacting to the U.S. announcement on Tuesday, an Iranian oil official said the United States’ efforts against Iran’s oil industry will fail.

“Iran exports a total amount of 2.5 million barrel per day of crude and condensate and eliminating it easily and in a period of a few months is impossible,” the oil official told the semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Trump’s attempts to deprive Iran of oil revenues raises the stakes for President Hassan Rouhani, who has attempted to appease anger over his government’s handling of the economy.

The Iranian parliament ramped up pressure on Rouhani on Wednesday by issuing a letter, signed by 187 representatives — more than half of the total– asking that the president change the economic team within his administration.

A ban on imports of over 1,300 products announced by Iran on Monday in order to prepare its economy for looming U.S. sanctions presented a big opportunity for Iranian companies, Rouhani said.

“The government’s decision to ban the import of some goods to the country with the goal of protecting Iranian goods is a very big opportunity for domestic producers,” he was quoted as saying on state media.

A senior commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards said all Iranians were obliged to help the government cope with any financial crisis, according to Fars News.

“It is all of our duty to work together to help the respected government and other governmental branches in solving the economic problems,” General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, who is also a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said on Wednesday.

“We must neutralize the plans of the enemy for an economic war and psychological operations.”

(Reporting by Babak DehghanpishehWriting by Michael Georgy, Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean)

Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist detained as driving ban lifted: sources

FILE PHOTO: Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi, author of "Women in Pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea" looks at the camera during an interview at her residence in Riyadh April 20, 2008. REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed/File Photo

By Sarah Dadouch

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has detained prominent women’s rights advocate Hatoon al-Fassi, widening a crackdown that has ensnared more than a dozen activists even as the kingdom lifted a ban on women driving, sources said on Wednesday.

London-based Saudi rights group ALQST and exiled activist Manal al-Sharif reported the arrest on Twitter, but provided few details. It was confirmed by sources in touch with people close to Fassi, who said they were scared of speaking out.

An Interior Ministry spokesman and the government’s communications office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fassi was last active online on Thursday. She was planning to take journalists in her car on Sunday as other women did to celebrate the much-hyped end of the world’s last ban on female drivers, long seen as an emblem of women’s repression in the deeply conservative Muslim country.

The ban’s end, ordered last September by King Salman, is part of sweeping reforms pushed by his powerful son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a bid to transform the economy of the world’s top oil exporter and open up its cloistered society.

But it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent against some of the very activists who previously campaigned against the ban, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan, and Aziza al-Yousef as well as the men Ibrahim al-Modaimeegh, Mohammad al-Rabea and Abdulaziz al-Meshaal.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor said earlier this month that a total of 17 people had been arrested, eight of whom were later released. The authorities accused them of suspicious contacts with “foreign entities” and said more suspects were being sought. Local media labeled them traitors.

At least nine people remain in detention “after sufficient evidence was made available and for their confessions of charges attributed to them”.

Fassi is an associate professor at King Saud University and a regular contributor to Saudi Arabia’s al-Riyadh newspaper. She has long been a champion for women’s rights, including the right to drive. Her husband is a prominent Gulf Cooperation Council official.

Fassi tweeted on June 6 that she had received her Saudi driving license along with a small group of women who converted their permits obtained in foreign countries.

“It is as if I have been recognized as an equal citizen,” she told English-language newspaper Arab News last week. “Celebrating will be the first aim, then I will see where I need to go on that day.”

(Additional Reporting by Stephen Kalin, Editing by Stephen Kalin and William Maclean)

Xi tells Mattis China won’t give up ‘one inch’ of territory

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, second from left, speaks during a meeting with China's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe at the Bayi Building in Beijing, China, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS

By Phil Stewart and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – China is committed to peace and won’t cause “chaos” in the world, but cannot give up even an inch of territory that the country’s ancestors have left behind, Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday.

Mattis, a former Marine general, has been highly critical of China’s muscular military moves in the disputed South China Sea. The U.S. military even withdrew an invitation to China to join a multinational naval exercise that will start during Mattis’ visit, upsetting Beijing.

Mattis is visiting against a backdrop of spiraling tension between Beijing and Washington over trade.

Beijing is also deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward self-governing and democratic Taiwan, which is armed by the United States. China views the island as a sacred part of its territory.

Meeting in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Xi told Mattis that China had only peaceful intentions and would not “cause chaos,” state television reported.

Both countries’ common interests far outweigh their differences, but on territorial issues there can be no concessions, Xi added, without referring to specific areas.

“We cannot lose even one inch of the territory left behind by our ancestors. What is other people’s, we do not want at all,” state television cited Xi as saying.

Mattis, in comments in front of reporters, told Xi his talks had been “very, very” good.

“I am happy to be in China and we are assigning the same high degree of importance to the military relationship,” Mattis said.

Meeting earlier in the day, China’s defense minister told Mattis that only with mutual respect and by avoiding confrontation can China and the United States develop together.

“China upholds peaceful development, and China’s military unswervingly protects the country’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said, according to his ministry.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, and China's Defense Minister Wei Fenghe stand as the American national anthem is played during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, left, and China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe stand as the American national anthem is played during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing, Wednesday, June 27, 2018. Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters

“China and the United States can only develop together if we maintain no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Wei added.

“China and the United States’ two militaries must implement the consensus of the two countries’ leaders, increase mutual trust, strengthen cooperation and manage risks to turn ties between the two militaries into a factor for stability in the bilateral relationship.”

Mattis, the first Pentagon chief to visit China since 2014, told Wei he expected all of his conversations in Beijing would be characterized by an “open and honest” dialogue, like the one he had with Wei.

“The military-to-military relationship is critical to the broader relationship between our two countries,” Mattis added, in comments also in front of reporters.

Mattis invited Wei to visit him at the Pentagon.

Wei was similarly upbeat in his public remarks.

“Your visit to China this time is … a new positive factor to the military-to-military and state-to-state relationship,” said Wei, who only assumed his position in March.

TAIWAN TENSION

The Chinese defense ministry statement made only passing mention of the South China Sea, Taiwan and North Korea, citing Wei as telling Mattis what China’s positions were on those issues.

As Mattis arrived, Chinese state media said a formation of Chinese warships had been holding daily combat drills for more than a week in waters near Taiwan, and there have been frequent Chinese air force exercises near the island.

While China and the United States have tried hard to keep lines of communication between their militaries open, especially at the senior level, they are deeply suspicious of each other.

The United States accuses China of militarizing the South China Sea with its island-building work there, while China has been angered by U.S. naval patrols through the strategic waterway.

In May, the United States withdrew an invitation to China to attend a major U.S.-hosted naval drill, the Rim of the Pacific exercise, known as RIMPAC and previously attended by China, in response to what Washington sees as Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea.

Still, the two have broad strategic common interests, such as ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.

China welcomed a historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier this month in Singapore, where Kim reaffirmed a commitment to work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, while Trump said he would halt joint U.S.-South Korean “war games.”

(The story is refiled to removes extraneous words paragraphs five and nine, fixes typo paragraph seven.)

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina; Editing by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel)

Poland backs down on Holocaust law, moves to end jail terms

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaks during debate about Holocaust bill at lower house of Parliament in Warsaw, Poland June 27, 2018. Agencja Gazeta/Slawomir Kaminski via REUTERS

By Pawel Sobczak

WARSAW (Reuters) – Polish lawmakers voted on Wednesday to water down a Holocaust law that angered the United States and Israel, and remove parts that imposed jail terms on people who suggest the nation was complicit in Nazi crimes.

The lower house of parliament backed the changes in an emergency session hours after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki asked it to amend the four-month-old law. An upper house vote is expected later on Wednesday.

The unexpected u-turn came as the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) seeks to bolster security ties with Washington and faces heightened scrutiny from the EU.

It also came the morning after Poland’s state-run company PGNiG said it had signed long-term agreements on liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies from the United States.

The law as it went into effect in March imposed jail sentences of up to three years for anyone who used the phrase “Polish death camps” or suggested “publicly and against the facts” that the Polish nation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany’s crimes.

The nationalist, right-wing government said at the time the law was needed to protect Poland’s reputation. Israel and its ally the United States said it amounted to a historical whitewash.

Morawiecki did not say what precisely had prompted his morning announcement. But he told parliament the terms of the existing law had already done their job by raising awareness of Poland’s role in World War Two – the government says Poles were the victims of Nazi aggression, not fellow perpetrators.

The law had been meant as “a kind of shock” and courts would still be able impose fines, he added.

“The purpose of this law was and still is one fundamental message: fight for the truth, fight for the truth of World War Two and post-war times,” Morawiecki said.

“A publisher in the United States or in Germany will think twice before publishing today an article using the expression ‘Polish SS”, ‘Polish gestapo’ or ‘Polish concentration camps’ if he risks a lawsuit and a fine of 100 million euro or dollars,” Morawiecki added.

“THIS IS ALL CONNECTED”

One PiS lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, would only say the changes had been agreed as “a result of our analysis of the situation”.

“The international discussion, and especially in the United States had an impact. This is all connected,” the lawmaker added.

Warsaw has been seeking security and energy assurances from Washington as a deterrence policy against Russia – and last month broke from the EU’s outright rejection of Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

European Union ministers began an unprecedented discussion on Tuesday of threats to the rule of law in Poland, urging Warsaw to step back from contested judicial reforms they say put its courts under more political control.

About 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Jews from across the continent were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland – home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time – including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

(Additional reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko, Anna Koper, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.S. pulls funding for U.N. counterterrorism office headed by Russian

The United Nations building is seen during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States cut a planned $2 million pledge for the United Nations Counterterrorism Office on Wednesday and downgraded its presence at a conference on the issue, the latest move by the Trump administration to wield its funding to push for reform of the world body.

The funding cut was made over a decision by the U.N. counterterrorism chief, a former Russian diplomat with more than 30 years service, to close part of an inaugural conference to nongovernmental interest groups, a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said.

When asked if the decision had anything to do with counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov being Russian, the U.S. official said “it matters” and that Voronkov had come under “tremendous pressure by his home country” on the conference.

Voronkov’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has been accused by Western countries of cracking down on interest groups known as “civil society” and discouraging independent institutions.

The U.S. official said the United States and other countries had pushed U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Voronkov, who was appointed a year ago, to include the groups in the whole conference because they have valuable contributions to make.

“Our entreaties seem to have fallen on deaf ears and instead the views of countries like Syria, Venezuela, Iran and Russia seem to have more weight on this matter than do the countries that do the most on counterterrorism,” the U.S. official said.

The U.S. stance on the one-year old office is the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s push for change at the United Nations. Last week, the United States withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council over what it saw as the body’s bias against Israel and a lack of reform.

Two sessions at the conference’s opening day on Thursday – on the sharing of information and expertise and combating foreign fighters – will be closed to interest groups and media.

A senior U.N. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reason for closing the sessions was the expectation of “a lot of sensitive information shared between the heads of counterterrorism agencies.”

The U.S. official said Washington has downgraded its representation at the two-day conference to an acting deputy coordinator in the State Department Bureau of Counterterrorism, instead of a possible ministerial level official.

Nearly 120 countries were expected to attend, along with 100 civil society groups, the U.N. official said. Close to 75 percent of delegations would be led by heads or deputy heads of counterterrorism agencies or interior ministers, the official said.

(This version of the story corrects day conference opens to Thursday)

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Wildfires threaten Northern California homes, national park in New Mexico

FILE PHOTO: The Pawnee Fire, which broke out on Saturday, in Northern California. Courtesy CAL FIRE/via REUTERS

By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – Four wildfires burned in Northern California on Tuesday, threatening hundreds of homes, while another blaze in an area of New Mexico hard hit by drought will force most of a sprawling national park to close, fire officials said.

The most damaging blaze, the Pawnee Fire, burned in Lake County near the Mendocino National Forest, 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Sacramento. It had destroyed 22 buildings and charred 11,500 acres (4,654 hectares) by Tuesday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

The fire has forced about 1,500 people to evacuate, said Lieutenant Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Department.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Lake County on Monday, freeing up resources. By Tuesday more than 1,400 firefighters battled the blaze, Cal Fire said.

The blaze was 5 percent contained, unchanged from Monday.

Lake County has now had at least one damaging wildfire each of the last four years, Paulich said.

“I don’t recall any fires as big in my first 19 years that we’ve had in the past four years,” said Paulich, a 23-year sheriff’s department veteran.

The fire’s growth on Tuesday was away from populated areas, Paulich said, adding that if that trend continues, residents may soon be allowed to return to their homes.

In New Mexico, most of the Carson National Forest will close on Wednesday. This will be the first time the 1.4 million acre (566,600 hectares) forest, larger than the state of Delaware, will close because of drought since 2011.

The closure is “strictly precautionary” and called due to the area being in the highest level of drought. The New Mexico fire is not expected to threaten any structures, the Carson National Forest said.

The Pawnee is one of four major wildfires burning in California as temperatures rise across the state. None are reported to have caused injuries.

Of the four, two were more than 50 percent contained by Tuesday afternoon, Cal Fire said.

The Lane Fire in Tehama County, 140 miles north of Sacramento and east of the Pawnee Fire, had blackened 3,800 acres and threatened 200 buildings, fire officials said. It was 45 percent contained.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Israel asks Cyprus to consider shipping route for Gaza: Cypriot official

FILE PHOTO: Palestinian fishermen ride their boats as they return from fishing at the seaport of Gaza City early morning September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem/File Photo

ATHENS/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has asked Cyprus to examine the possibility of establishing a shipping point on the island for sending goods to the Gaza Strip, a Cypriot government spokesman said on Tuesday.

Goods shipped by sea usually come to an Israeli port and are transferred to Gaza over land. Israel enforces a maritime blockade on Gaza, which it says is meant to prevent weapons from reaching the territory ruled by the Islamist militant group Hamas.

Both Egypt and Israel restrict movement across Gaza’s land borders as well. The United Nations has called for a freer flow of goods into Gaza, where most Palestinians live in poverty.

The idea of setting up a facility in Cyprus has been floated for years, and Israel recently made a request to explore the issue, according to Cypriot government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou.

“It is an old issue which is now being re-discussed,” Prodromou told Reuters.

“There will be contacts between the government and all interested parties in the region and, possibly, a decision will be taken. At the moment no decision has been taken. The request is being examined, it hasn’t been rejected,” he said.

Prodromou did not say when the request was made, but Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Nicosia last week.

An Israeli news report late on Monday said Lieberman had reached an understanding with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades to pursue the port plan.

Lieberman’s office, in response to the report, said that Israel is working internationally in a number of ways to try to “change the reality in Gaza”, but that any move to improve the humanitarian situation depends on the return of Israelis who are missing or being held prisoner in Gaza.

“Beyond that we cannot relate to the details,” it said in a statement.

Israel has demanded the return of two Israeli civilians who it says crossed into Gaza and are being held by Hamas, as well as the bodies of two soldiers who were killed in a 2014 war. Hamas says it is holding them but does not give any details.

Hamas officials declined to comment on the port plan.

At least one Israeli cabinet minister, Yuval Steinitz, has been promoting the Cyprus port idea as a way to create a conduit into Gaza that does not go through Israel. Another Israeli cabinet minister has raised the idea of building an artificial island off the Gaza coast, a much larger project.

“I think that we can combine our security on one hand and open Gaza to the outer world on the other hand,” Steinitz said of the port idea in an interview in Washington.

A port would be a faster solution than an artificial island. Opening a port in Cyprus could take only a few months after getting international approval and could be shut down quickly if somebody abuses it, Steinitz said. Building an artificial island could take 10 years, he said.

Security checks at the piers, however, would have to be handled by Israel together with an international group such as the United Nations, Steinitz said earlier this month.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas, Ari Rabinovitch, Dan Williams, Nidal al-Mughrabi; Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Grant McCool)

Exclusive: Ukraine says Russia hackers laying groundwork for massive strike

A message demanding money is seen on a monitor of a payment terminal at a branch of Ukraine's state-owned bank Oschadbank after Ukrainian institutions were hit by cyber attacks, in Kiev, Ukraine June 27, 2017. Picture taken June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

By Pavel Polityuk

KIEV (Reuters) – Hackers from Russia are infecting Ukrainian companies with malware to create so-called ‘back doors’ for a large coordinated attack, Ukraine’s cyber police chief told Reuters on Tuesday, almost a year after a strike on Ukraine spread around the world.

Affected companies range across various industries, such as banks or energy infrastructure. The pattern of the malware being rolled out suggests the people behind it want to activate it on a particular day, Serhiy Demedyuk said.

Demedyuk said his staff were cooperating with foreign agencies to track the hackers, without naming the agencies.

Police had identified viruses designed to hit Ukraine since the start of the year, including phishing emails sent from legitimate domains of state institutions whose systems were hacked, or a fake webpage mimicking that of a real state body.

They had intercepted hackers sending malware from different sources and broken into various components so as to remain undetected by antivirus software until activated as a single unit, Demedyuk said.

“Analysis of the malicious software that has already been identified and the targeting of attacks on Ukraine suggest that this is all being done for a specific day,” he said.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia plunged following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Kiev has accused Russia of orchestrating large-scale cyber attacks as part of a “hybrid war” against Ukraine, which Moscow repeatedly denies.

Some attacks coincided with major Ukrainian holidays and Demedyuk said another strike could be launched on Thursday — Constitution Day — or on Independence Day in August.

On June 27 last year, the country was hit by a massive strike known as “NotPetya”, which knocked out Ukrainian IT systems before spreading around the world. The United States and Britain joined Ukraine in blaming Russia for the attack.

Demedyuk said the scale of the latest detected preparations was the same as NotPetya.

“This is support on a government level – very expensive and very synchronized. Without the help of government bodies it would not be possible. We’re talking now about the Russian Federation,” he said.

“Everything we’re seeing, everything we’ve intercepted in this period: 99 percent of the traces come from Russia.”

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine is better prepared to withstand such attacks thanks to cooperation with foreign allies since the NotPetya strike, Demedyuk said. Ukraine has received support from the U.S., Britain and NATO among others to beef up its cyber defenses.

But Demedyuk said some Ukrainian companies had not bothered to clean their computers after NotPetya struck, leaving machines still infected by the virus and vulnerable to being used for another attack.

“We are sounding the alarm to remind people – come to your senses, check your equipment,” he said. “It’s better to be on the safe side than clean up a mess like last time.”

He also appealed to global companies who were hit by NotPetya, including U.S. and European firms in Ukraine, to share details of their investigations and steps to localize the hack.

“They have a huge amount of very interesting evidence, which they store themselves. We would like it if they weren’t scared and approached us.”

(Additional reporting by Margarita Popova in Moscow; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Philippa Fletcher)