Canada and several of its key Western allies on Thursday accused Russia’s military intelligence service of a litany of ‘malicious cyber-operations’ including the hacking of the Canadian-based world anti-doping body and an attempt to hack into the chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands.

In a coordinated move, the U.S. Justice Department also charged seven Russian military intelligence officers in relation with the 2016 hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) based in Montreal in a bid to delegitimize the anti-doping body.

Russian operatives also targeted a Pennsylvania-based nuclear energy company, according to the U.S. officials.

Three of the seven Russian military intelligence officials accused in the hacking were previously charged by special counsel Robert Mueller, Justice Department officials said during a morning press conference attended by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Cybercrime Director Mark Flynn.

4 Russian spies expelled

Mark Flynn, Director General for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, left, and Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers, attend a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018, at the Justice Department in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

(listen to U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division John Demers announce the reasons for indictments of Russian officers)

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Four of the officers, allegedly working for Russia’s Chief Intelligence Directorate better known under its Russian acronym, GRU, were also charged for cyber-targeting the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ (OPCW) network in April.

The OPCW was investigating the nerve agent poisoning of a former GRU officer and his daughter in Salisbury, U.K.

Incidentally, the two suspects in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, who had betrayed several Russian agents to the British intelligence, and his daughter Yulia were also identified as GRU officers by British authorities.

The GRU’s alleged hacking attempts on the chemical weapons watchdog in April were disrupted by authorities, Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld said Thursday. Four Russian intelligence officers carrying diplomatic passports were immediately expelled from the Netherlands, said a press release by the Netherlands Defence Intelligence and Security Service (DISS).

In 2014, Dutch authorities also blocked attempts by Russian hackers to gain access to the investigation into the downing of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine that killed all 298 people on board, Bijleveld said.

In this imaged released and manipulated at source by the Dutch Defence Ministry, Thursday Oct. 4, 2018, four Russian officers of the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, GRU, are escorted to their flight after being expelled from the Netherlands on April 13, 2018, for allegedly trying to hack into the U.N. chemical watchdog OPCW’s network. (Dutch Defence Ministry via AP)

The British ambassador to the Netherlands said that the men caught with spy gear outside the OPCW building were from the very same GRU section (Unit 26165) accused by American investigators of having broken into the Democratic National Committee’s email and sowing havoc during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The alleged Russian spies deported from The Hague also planned to travel on to the OPCW designated laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland, said Ambassador Peter Wilson. But this wouldn’t have been the first time they’d travelled to Switzerland.

Intelligence collected from a laptop that belonged to one of the GRU officers caught in The Hague showed that it had connected to WiFi at the Alpha Palmiers Hotel in Lausanne in September 2016 – where a WADA...