KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Authorities in Ukraine and Russia said their emergency alert mobile apps had been targeted by cyberattacks, with users in Ukraine receiving false warnings of an imminent nuclear threat.
It was not clear if the attacks late Sunday were related. Ukraine said its service, which residents rely on to seek safety amid daily Russian missile and drone strikes, was up and running again after being suspended due to the attack.
WATCH: Inside a Ukrainian city hit by Russian drones during the Starlink disruption
Russian authorities said Monday that hackers had sent fake emergency alerts after gaining access to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s mobile app, and that efforts were ongoing to restore the app’s functionality.
A Russian Telegram channel said a hacking group, Hitcore, had claimed responsibility for the breach of the Ukrainian system, but that could not be independently verified. Any affiliations or other details surrounding the identities or motivations of the purported hackers were unclear.
The alerts received by Ukrainians — making false claims of high radiation levels, a chemical threat and public disturbances in Kyiv — were written in English with spelling and grammatical errors as well as in a mix of Russian and Ukrainian.
One of the messages, written in Russian, said: “Hi! There will be a nuclear threat across Ukraine. Do not worry, the Oreshnik is incoming,” a reference to a Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile.
In a Telegram post late Sunday following the breach, Ukraine’s air raid alert channel said “unauthorized parties” had interfered with the app’s operation and warned users not to click on links in “suspicious notifications.”
Ukraine’s state-run Center for Countering Disinformation urged users to monitor other emergency channels on social media and rely on physical alerts while the cyberattack was being addressed.
Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force command, told Ukraine’s private 1+1 television that the cyberattack had no impact on Ukraine’s security and defense operations because the app is separate from military command systems.
In a statement, Russia’s Emergency Ministry said that hackers had used its mobile app to send a false alert across 33 of Russia’s 89 regions at approximately 2:45 a.m. Moscow time (11:45 p.m. GMT). It did not name who it believed carried out the attack.
The ministry said that the digital vulnerability exploited by the attackers had been identified and that “necessary measures” were being taken to prevent a similar breach. It also reassured Russians that the wider public alert system was working normally through SMS messages, media broadcasts and municipal sirens and loudspeakers.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that all of Russia’s state agencies were under the constant threat of cyberattacks, including a growing number that use artificial intelligence.
“All government bodies must take steps to improve the cybersecurity of our digital resources,” Peskov said.
Ukrainian authorities in the war-divided Kherson region reported multiple Russian drone attacks early Monday, hours after a humanitarian ceasefire expired.
The regional administration said a 62-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man were hospitalized with blast injuries in the city of Kherson, across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied territory.
The localized ceasefire, which began on Oct. 27, ended at midnight at the start of Monday. The brief pause in fighting was part of a humanitarian aid and evacuation mission in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, and marked the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion began nearly five years ago.
READ MORE: Aid operation and evacuations in Oleshky amid brief truce agreed to by Russia and Ukraine
Speaking to reporters in Kyiv on Monday, Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said the oldest person evacuated to Ukrainian territory during the mission was 94 years old, and added that 104 pets, including four parrots, were also rescued.
Lubinets, who was Ukraine’s lead civilian negotiator for the mission, said he hoped the localized ceasefire and evacuation would act as a “pilot model” for other missions, and could “add to the momentum” of three-way negotiations between Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. officials expected this month.
He said Ukraine hoped to make future aid deliveries to residents who chose to stay in Oleshky, and that the delivery mechanism was still being worked out. He described the involvement of U.S. first lady Melania Trump, who helped broker the limited truce, as critical.
“Without the American representation, we could not even imagine such cooperation because many bodies, including military and intelligence, were involved in this combined effort,” he said.
Lubinets described the mission as exhausting and “very complicated.”
“We crossed into the territory of the Russian Federation and had to remain alert at all times,” he said. “We are dog-tired.”
An estimated 2,000 civilians were in Oleshky when the temporary truce took effect. They could evacuate to territory controlled by either Ukraine or Russia, or remain in the city with replenished food and medical supplies. Exact evacuation totals were withheld to protect those who stayed.
Ukraine’s general staff said Monday that Russia’s military had bolstered its drone defenses and replenished ammunition supplies in the area during the ceasefire.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, emergency services reported that drone strikes injured 12 people in the eastern Kharkiv region and damaged a refrigeration facility, greenhouses and residential buildings.
Five people were also reported injured in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, where a warehouse was targeted and homes were damaged.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Monday that it shot down 212 Ukrainian drones overnight, while the head of Russia’s Samara region, Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, said in a statement that local air defenses were repelling an aerial attack, but did not give further details.
Independent Russian media outlets later reported that Ukrainian drones had targeted one of Europe’s largest oil transport hubs in Samara.
Katie Marie Davies contributed to this report from Manchester, England.
