KYIV, November 2 (Aalimi Nation) – Ukraine's air force said on Sunday that the country's public air raid alert application had been hacked, after it briefly pushed out false warnings of nuclear and chemical threats around Kyiv and other regions. Kyiv blamed Russia, while Russia's Emergencies Ministry separately reported a cyberattack on its own mobile application. It was not immediately clear whether the two incidents were linked.
The Ukraine air alert app is used across the country to warn people in real time of incoming Russian air attacks. For a short time, users received messages claiming that Kyiv and surrounding areas faced radiation and chemical dangers, as well as the risk of street fighting. One erroneous message said Russia had deployed its Oreshnik hypersonic missile.
The air force responded on Telegram. "The air alert app appears to have been subjected to enemy influence," it said, adding: "There is no radiation threat! Stay calm and follow our updates on our channel!"
Ukraine's digital transformation ministry said the application was not operating after the incident. Other warning methods, including air raid sirens, continued to work, officials said. A separate Kyiv city alert application worked normally, city authorities said.
SPRAVDI, Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications, blamed Russia for the hack in a post on X. The Centre for Countering Disinformation said the threat information shown in the application "does not correspond to reality". The attribution so far rests on statements by Ukrainian officials.
Early on Monday, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said its mobile application had come under a "massive cyberattack" that led to the spread of "false information", according to a statement it posted on Telegram. The ministry said it was working to restore the service, which warns people of incoming drone attacks and other threats. The Russian claim has not been independently verified.
Ukraine's air force made its announcement shortly after a localised truce in the southern Kherson region came to an end. The pause in fighting there was described as the longest of the war so far.
The incident comes as Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, with Kyiv among the cities struck.
Diplomacy remains stalled. Talks between Moscow and Kyiv that are mediated by the United States are due to resume this month, but they have been effectively frozen since the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in February. On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would stop hitting Russian oil refineries, as US President Donald Trump has demanded, if Washington supplied Patriot interceptor missiles.
Officials have not said when the national alert application will return to service, or whether investigators have identified how attackers gained access to it. Technical findings and any response from Moscow to the accusation would clarify whether the two incidents were connected.
