Pager blasts in Lebanon: Russia calls for global regulation to limit IT giants' power over digital tech

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia is calling on the global community to adopt legally binding international mechanisms to prevent IT giants from abusing their control over digital technologies, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Friday, expressing concern over two waves of communication device blasts in Lebanon.

Responding to a question from an Anadolu correspondent at a news conference in Moscow, she emphasized that Western corporations dominate key IT production, concentrating power in their hands.

"They restrict technology transfers to developing nations and states with independent policies, ensuring that their monopoly remains intact," Zakharova explained, adding that “this monopoly allows them to exert pressure and control processes.”

The official also noted that American IT companies are supported by US and allied intelligence agencies, which use their influence for espionage and interference in other countries' internal affairs.

She pointed out that companies such as Microsoft are shifting sovereign state management systems to cloud data storage in order to control national information spaces.

In response, Russia advocates for international cooperation mechanisms that protect state sovereignty and security in accordance with the UN Charter, while also fostering a secure and independent digital environment, she stressed.

"It is crucial to hold IT giants accountable for their products, ensuring that companies prevent the introduction of harmful backdoors into software. This is why we urge the global community to develop universal, legally binding tools in the area of international information security," she emphasized.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 37 people were killed and more than 3,250 others, including women and children, injured in a series of explosions involving wireless communication devices, including pagers and two-way radios.

Later, a Hungarian news report suggested that Bulgarian-based Norta Global was involved in the sale of pagers to Lebanon-based group Hezbollah.

Earlier on Friday, Norwegian police announced to have launched a preliminary investigation into a Bulgarian-based company owned by a Norwegian citizen in connection with pager explosions.

So far, the case's clues point to Taiwan, Hungary, Bulgaria, and, now Norway.

Both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have blamed Israel for the well-planned explosions.

Israel has yet to make any official comment on the deadly attacks. Even, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced itself from a post on X by his advisor Topaz Luk, which hinted at Tel Aviv was responsible for the explosions.

Several countries condemned the pager explosions and expressed solidarity with Lebanon, while international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, warned that such attacks endanger civilian lives and violate wartime laws.

The mass explosion of pagers came amid an exchange of cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel against the backdrop of a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 41,300 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 95,000 others following a Hamas attack last October.