“Everyone to the air raid shelter, now,” is the announcement on many Russian broadcasters and social media. The message later turned out to be a false alarm. Local officials hold Ukraine responsible.
According to the authorities, several regional broadcasters in Russia have broadcast false air alarm warnings because of a hacker attack. The population was asked to go to shelters because of a rocket attack. “As a result of a hacking attack on the servers of radio and television stations, information about the announcement of an air alert was distributed in some regions of the country,” the Ministry of Civil Defense said. “This information is incorrect and does not correspond to reality,” it said. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, the regions affected also included the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russian state media quoted local officials as blaming Ukraine. There was no statement from the government in Kiev. Posts circulating on social media showed images of regional TV stations broadcasting an icon of a man taking cover from missiles with the caption “Everyone to bomb shelter, now.”
A loud siren sounded on the radio with the message “Attention, attention. An air raid alarm has been triggered. Everyone go to the air raid shelter. Attention, attention. Missile danger”. Similar incidents had already occurred on several radio stations in the past week. In addition, the website of state television collapsed last Tuesday during the live transmission of President Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation speech via online stream. The authorities also blamed a hacker attack for this.
