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Russian hackers are suspected of breaking in to former trade secretary Liam Fox’s email account to steal classified UK-US trade documents that were leaked in the run-up to the last general election, it has been reported. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Monday that it was leading an investigation, after Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab previously accused “Russian actors” of seeking to influence the vote by “amplifying” the stolen papers online. Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi has said the Government wants normalisation of a bilateral relationship with Russia.

Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Zahawi said: “Our relationship with Russia is not the one that we want but there can be normalisation of a bilateral relationship with Russia until it stops its irressponsible and distabilising activity.

“Until Russia begins to change its behaviour then we can’t look at going back to going back to any international partnership because as this story suggests they threaten the UK and its allies.”

He added that as a minister, they are all very careful with how data is handled.

The documents were highlighted by then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who said they were evidence the Conservatives were preparing to sell the NHS to US pharmaceutical companies.

Reuters, citing two anonymous sources, reported that Russian hackers are suspected of accessing Dr Fox’s account multiple times between July 12 and October 21 last year.

The account was said to have been the victim of a “spear phishing” message, where users are tricked into handing over their log-in details and password.

An NCA spokeswoman said its investigators were leading the criminal probe, while the Cabinet Office defended the Government’s IT systems.

“There is an ongoing criminal investigation into how the documents were acquired, and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this point,” a Government spokeswoman said.

“But as you would expect, the Government has very robust systems in place to protect the IT systems of officials and staff.”

The Government spokeswoman did not answer questions on whether hackers had accessed a Government or personal email account, while an aide to Dr Fox declined to comment.

The spokeswoman for the NCA said: “We can confirm that the NCA is leading the investigation but we cannot comment further as this is a live investigation.”

The document appeared online months before the election but received little attention before Mr Corbyn highlighted it at a press conference in November.

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He has said it is a “bogus claim” that Labour received any Russian support while the nation denies it has interfered in any UK election.

It comes as The European Union imposed on Thursday travel and financial sanctions on a department of Russia’s military intelligence service and on firms from North Korea and China over their suspected participation in major cyberattacks across the world.

In its first ever sanctions related to cybercrime, the EU targeted the department for special technologies of the Russian military intelligence service, known as Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it said in a statement.

The bloc accused the Russian service of having carried out two cyberattacks in June 2017, which hit several companies in Europe resulting in large financial losses. The service is also accused of two cyberattacks against Ukraine’s power grid in 2015 and 2016.

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