“The Kremlin has positioned Russia in direct opposition to the West, yet it doesn’t have to be that way,” said Tariq Ahmad, foreign office minister for cybersecurity. “We call upon Russia to be the responsible member of the international community it claims to be rather than secretly trying to undermine it.”

Ahmad said Russia’s “reckless” attack showed a “continued disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty” and cost organizations across Europe hundreds of millions of pounds.

“The malware was not designed to be decrypted. This meant that there was no means for victims to recover data once it had been encrypted. Therefore, it is more accurate to describe this attack as destructive than as ransomware,” the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said in its statement.