Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
An exchange of cyber strikes between Kyiv and Moscow usually plays out in anonymous claims. This one got a presidential signature.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky openly claimed credit for his country’s hack of a Russian emergency alert application in a television interview with PBS NewsHour, framing the operation as a measured response after Russian hackers planted false nuclear and chemical warnings in Ukraine’s own air raid app.
“We only respond to their attacks,” Zelensky told PBS NewsHour anchor Amna Nawaz on November 2. He added that once Ukrainian intelligence had confirmed Russia was behind what he described as a direct attack on Ukrainian civilians, Kyiv responded in kind.
From air raid alerts to false nuclear warnings
The exchange played out over about 24 hours. Late on November 1, Ukraine’s Air Alert mobile application, built with Ajax Systems and used to warn civilians of incoming missiles and drones, was compromised. One of the fake notifications, published in Russian, declared that a nuclear alert was about to sound across Ukraine and claimed a Russian Oreshnik ballistic missile was inbound, the Kyiv Independent reported. Ukraine’s Air Force dismissed the alerts and the developers temporarily suspended push notifications.
Hours later, Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations acknowledged its own mobile app had been hit with what it called a “massive cyberattack.” Fake messages told Russians that nuclear warheads had been launched across the country and urged residents to stockpile food for three weeks and shelter in basements, according to Ukrainska Pravda. The ministry said its broader public notification system was not affected.
A rare on-record claim
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) and Security Service (SBU) have claimed many cyber operations against Russian banks, logistics firms and government systems during the war. A sitting Ukrainian president personally and publicly taking ownership of a specific offensive cyber operation against Russian civilian-facing infrastructure, on US television, is far rarer.
Zelensky also told PBS the Russian hack on Ukraine’s warning system was one of thousands of similar operations against civilian services, from banking to pensions to social support, since the full-scale invasion began. He did not disclose which Ukrainian unit carried out the hack of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry app.
Russian technicians were still working to restore the ministry’s application early on November 2, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
