this is d.w. years live from berlin hackers infiltrate some of germany's most sensitive computer networks the government confirms reports of a cyber attack on systems in the defense and foreign ministries of german media say a russian backed group is to blame meanwhile in russia has improved in ways ours he's vision for the country promising to hop politics and keep enemies at bay with an impressive array of invincible nuclear weapons. and the beast from the east savages europe a siberian cold slug plunges the continent into

a deep freeze graying snow transport chaos and some of the lowest temperatures for years. i'm phil gale welcome to the program authorities in germany say hackers of infiltrated sensitive government computer networks believed to be in the defense and foreign ministries media reports say the attacks been going on for more than a year and today a parliamentary committee said it might still be going on security agencies are said to have detected the breach in december and allowed it to continue in a controlled manner while they monitored it the group with links to the russian government is thought to be responsible. the german government's communication network has been breached by hackers the parliament's secret supervisory body has been informed by the chancellery and security services and they say it's not over

this is this is there was actual cyber attack on the government's information network and it's ongoing the government has known about this since december it spent weeks observing the cyber attack to learn more about the hackers activities not even the agency responsible for intelligence services was informed delegates are angry about being left out of the loop. we would all understand if the chancellor's office said it needs to observe a critical issue a little longer. but the fact that no one said anything at all on the contrary means we are once again in a position to learn about such incidents from the media which i think is absurd. parliamentarians agree the situation is dire. it is not true. this is a large of course although cyber attacks have been around for a long time the government and i t. security in this country aren't geared up toward them off the federal government must act on this now because it's

a serious threat. the extent of the hackers infiltration of the german data network is still under investigation classified information does not appear to have been stolen. then you it's clear what we need to clarify now is whether documents were stolen i did not assume that sensitive documents have really been leaked because it concerns the federal information network it's all about communication there's no sensitive data on any server it's not that simple. there's still speculation about the origin of the attack and how it was carried out some analysts point to indications of russian activities while others warn against premature accusations you've got just one attack on germany's integrity is one too many and i don't care where it comes from if it's from russia there's much to criticize as if it had originated from the national security agency lawmakers now want to discuss the details in a moving of the parliamentary supervisory body on intelligence. w

russia correspondent yuri russia spoke with cyber security expert roman brother tof and asked for his thoughts on russia's alleged hacking everybody understands that this is a part of russian modern foreign policy i think but it's a silly believe that every government behaves like this because he's like a k.g.b. guy indicated like this so he thinks that this is normal. foreign policy and why should we stop ourselves so if we can't why wouldn't we. do this so this is not the message this is just a part of every day behavior of people who are educated as like security agents. they think this is a pretty legitimate is through and the police in slovakia arrested a number of italian businessman named by murder journalist as having links to

government corruption twenty seven year old young man who was shot dead as you said last week along with his film say shortly after his murder the news website he worked for published his last unfinished article its claims have shocked the nation . journalists young could c.x. final story was the most explosive in his short career it may also have cost him his life the story details alleged links between the italian mafia and officials working in the prime minister's office it was published by his colleagues days after the bodies of and his fiance martina were found in their bratislava home. in one thousand nine percent convinced that the murder is connected with his writings about a link between italian mafia and slovakian politics. story name two officials who have now resigned pending an investigation one of them. a chief advisor to the prime minister another. chair of the state security department both have denied

any link to the killings prime minister robert fitz so seen here. has cautioned against judging the pair without evidence he's offered a reward of one million euros for information about the murders slovakia's culture minister also resigned ashamed that something like this could happen in his country or that the us culture minister i can't deal with the fact that the journalist was killed during my term in office. in brussels european parliamentarians held a minute of silence to honor the journalists to me that's. the truth with determination and didn't answer to anyone. the police declared that he was almost surely killed to stop his investigation. in case they could see x. grieving supporters want his work to be continued they marched in bratislava

demanding safety for journalists and an end to corruption could see acts reporting may now have more impact on slovakia than he could have ever imagined. russian president vladimir putin has used his annual state of the nation address to warn global powers that they must reckon with russia's military might as well as boasting of his country's a new generation of invincible nuclear weapons is the putin pledge to heart poverty in six years and improve the environment he seeking an unprecedented fourth presidential term elections due in seventeen days. russian politics look to change in twenty eighteen for years president vladimir putin has relied on an aggressive foreign policy to stoke his popularity but his speech presented a new emphasis on domestic issues opinion polls say russians biggest concern is the spiking poverty rate workers earnings are falling in the economy is growing too slowly. we need our

economy to grow faster than the world economy. i know it's not an easy task but we need that to happen in order to solve our social military and infrastructure challenges. the speech also dealt with russia's new nuclear arsenal specifically a new missile that putin claims can penetrate u.s. defenses. that. russia was and continues to be the greatest nuclear power but nobody wanted to talk with us nobody wanted to listen well listen now. the demonstration of strength and power that clearly went over well with the audience aimed at mobilizing his supporters for the election just over two weeks away. let's hear more from d.w. correspondent erin tilton who joins us from moscow welcome ira tell us more about

these supposedly invincible nuclear weapons. well as we heard there russian president vladimir putin today announced a bevy of new missile systems and weapons systems to kind of revamp his military and i've brought in some notes here because it was actually a whole series of them he announced a new intercontinental ballistic missile system which he claimed could strike any target on the planet he also announce the development of a hypersonic cruise missile system which could supposedly penetrate any missile defense system in the world and hit targets at a speed of almost up to mach twenty he also announced that the russian military had developed high speed underwater drones and nuclear powered cruise missiles all of these systems can supposedly be fitted with nuclear weaponry and he also said that all of these systems are capable of avoiding western counter michel's measures and specifically the american anti-missile anti-missile shield now one thing that i

would like to stress however is that these systems aren't necessarily new these are things that have been known about in military circles for years now but it was unusual that lattimer putin actually took to a stage and announced all of them at one time so as well as the nuclear stuff there was a lot of domestic issues in that as well the whole speech of the look of an election campaign speech but they seem to be targeting an international audience as well as looking domestically. well actually i would disagree through slightly there this was very much flooding where putin playing to his hometown crowd you have to realize this took place at his annual state of the union address and typically that address takes place in december of the year of the close of the closing year and actually kind of looks forward to what people can expect of him in the future however he took an unusual step he moved from december of last year to just two weeks in front of the or before the election and it seems very much as if he is attempting to use his state of the union address to draw up support for his

campaign with right before the elections so is that speech then likely to prompt a new nuclear race. well i wouldn't say the speech is the thing that's going to do it but it does seem like we are in the early days of new tensions military tensions between the u.s. and russia i'm not sure if we want to call it an arms race but we certainly are seeing some reciprocal actions on both sides that indicate that both militaries want to ramp up i mean for years the we've known that russia is developing these type of weapon systems and that's caused the u.s. to readdress its nuclear proposals basically we saw a white paper a couple months ago come out of the the pentagon saying that the u.s. should lower the threshold it has for using nuclear weapons in a potential war with major superpowers we also saw the american government saying that it wants introduce new tactical nuclear warheads which are much smaller which

some experts say would not necessarily provoke a massive retaliation from another nuclear power now that in turn has caused the russia to double down on developing its new nuclear capable weapons systems so while it does have the feeling of a new arms race it really does remain to be seen which country will take the next step and what exactly that step will be until then in moscow thank you. for some of the other stories making news around the world it's a list former prime minister silvio berlusconi has made his only joint appearance with leaders of the center right coalition it's an attempt to show a united front and dispel views of the total bit ahead of national elections on sunday about a scone his sense of right and lies is the only group with a realistic chance of winning a majority. european council president donald arrived in london we're told with british prime minister theresa may or wednesday mrs may rejected an e.u. plan to allow northern ireland to stay within the customs union after bret's it was

to toast is not challenging britain to come up with its own plan to prevent the hardboard in ireland to britain leaves the european union. the french judge has charged far right leader in the pan over a number of online posts she's accused of tweeting graphic images of violence purportedly carried out by so-called islamic state in france circulating violent material that could incite terrorism is punishable by up to three years in jail. they're calling it the beast from the east siberian weather system that has brought snow strong winds on the coldest temperatures for years across europe and the freeze is expected to continue. the wintery weather system has caused widespread disruption to public services and major travel delays like here at geneva's airport the busy hub was forced to suspend all flights for several hours after snowfall blanketed the swiss city overnight. heavy blizzards and biting temperatures are

continuing to last year up from the far north to the mediterranean south a red alert has been extended as parts of britain face severe weather conditions. but some have been enjoying the unusually snowy weather like these children in spain where hundreds of schools cancelled classes. in paris authorities urged commuters to leave their cars at home because of the treacherous roads many drivers were left stranded in their vehicles due to heavy snow on motorways that you even reach the mediterranean with normally sunny nice blanketed in snow. meanwhile in denmark the wintery weather spelled trouble for this fishing boat. it got stuck in the frozen waters of the loop in the north of the country. after the skipper was rescued his vessel slowly drifted into the eggers and bridge breaking

the boat's mast. washing day dubliners life from about and still to come global produces steel themselves focusing on new targets for the white house keeps the ways of the football and our business update with monica jugs in just a moment. couple feet of the talk i'll be out of a day to. learn german with w. . any time any place. whether with jo jo and her friends. colleagues there's going to be looking up to a night of mischief spritzes researchers.