Putin calls phone fraud Ukraine's state policy against Russia

Phone fraud has been elevated to the level of state policy in Ukraine as one of the lines of attack against Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this at a meeting with members of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights on December 10.

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Igor Ashmanov, head of the Cribrum company, said that millions of calls a day are made from the territory of Ukraine, the purpose of which is to intimidate or recruit Russians.

"As for the fact that certain actions are being taken from the territory of Ukraine, it is absolutely certain, we know it, it is elevated to the rank of state policy, it is one of the lines of attack on you and me, on our population. This is often done simply by state bodies or bodies or structures that are under Ukrainian state control," Putin said.

The head of state emphasized that he would draw the attention of the Prosecutor General's Office to the problem of Ukrainian scammers and instruct it to consider proposals for ways to block the shaft of calls from intruders.

Pavel Sklyanchuk, a member of the political technology committee of the Russian Public Relations Association, said that phone scammers from Ukraine are a threat factor to national security.

"It is obvious that they feel impunity, and for our law enforcers it is virtually impossible to investigate such cases, unlike, for example, cases when Russians become extortionists. I think there should be systemic measures from cellular operators as well, at least until the end of the SWO: if a call is pelenged from the territory of Ukraine, the subscriber should be notified about it," the expert told Izvestia.

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