Press Releases

U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) spoke with Fox News about Russian intelligence gathering and reports of the Losharik Russian spy submarine fire which killed 14 senior sailors last week.

“Most people think the internet is in the cloud. It’s really under the ocean,” Waltz said. “There are almost 400 of these cables [which] are about the size of a really large garden hose that run several hundred thousand miles and our entire modern economy is dependent on these fiber optic cables, from banking, to insurance, to financial markets.”

The Losharik spy submarine is capable of diving to extreme depths and has the capability to intercept or sabotage of global communications. Waltz raised questions about the sub’s mission before it caught fire, pointing to a greater Russian strategy to use the submarine for cyber and communications warfare.

“Both the Russians and the Chinese have made it clear in their national security strategy that they are not going to take the United States on tank-to-tank or aircraft carrier-to-aircraft carrier. They are going to attack us asymmetrically – that’s attacking us in cyber space, undermining our confidence in our elections, or in this case – and what this sub was [very likely] doing was tapping into these cables to collect data and gather intel.”

A video of the exchange is available here.