KYIV, Ukraine — A cyberattack compromised Ukraine’s nationwide air defense notification system late Sunday, pushing panic-inducing alerts about fabricated radiation emergencies, chemical strikes and urban street combat directly to citizens’ smartphones and public loudspeakers, officials said.
Ukraine’s Air Force quickly moved to dispel the warnings, posting to its official Telegram channel that the Air Alert mobile application had fallen victim to hostile electronic interference. Officials emphasized that no radiation hazard or chemical contamination existed in Kyiv or across the country, Fox News reported.
“The air alert app appears to have been subjected to enemy influence,” the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement. “There is no radiation threat! Stay calm and follow our updates on our channel!”
Panic and False Alarms Across Multiple Regions
The unauthorized alerts began flashing across mobile devices late Sunday evening, urging people to stay indoors and seek shelter. In addition to smartphone alerts, public loudspeakers blared warnings in the western Lviv region and other parts of the country, according to Ukrainian intelligence and local media. The nationwide map maintained by the defense system temporarily showed Kyiv and adjacent territories under active nuclear alerts.
Specific notifications obtained by The Kyiv Independent included Russian-language text falsely claiming a nuclear alert was taking effect across Ukraine and warning that Russia had fired an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile. Another notification, sent shortly before 11 p.m., warned that active street fighting was taking place inside Kyiv and instructed residents to remain inside, BBC News reported.
Local authorities moved quickly to reassure residents across different provinces. In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Gov. Svitlana Onyshchuk stated that the situation remained peaceful despite the app triggering an unauthorized red-level alert. Vinnytsia Gov. Natalia Zabolotna warned residents on Telegram not to click any web links embedded in the bogus notifications, cautioning that the breach could include phishing schemes intended to steal user data.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation, which supports the alert software developed alongside security firm Ajax Systems, advised residents in the capital to monitor the municipal Kyiv Digital app while technical teams isolated the intrusion. Officials said the application was temporarily placed into maintenance mode to address the disruption.
Roughly one hour after the breach began, all-clear notifications were pushed to Ukrainian users around 11:53 p.m., canceling each individual threat warning, BBC News reported. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service later reported that operations were normalizing, though residents were reminded to rely on authenticated government channels and remain alert to physical siren towers.
Counter-Attack Hits Russian Ministry App
While no cyber group immediately took direct responsibility, the Ukrainian government’s Centre for Strategic Communications publicly pointed to Moscow as the culprit behind the infiltration.
The breach unfolded shortly before the expiration of a localized ceasefire in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which took effect earlier in the week to permit civilian evacuations from the occupied town of Oleshky, BBC News reported.
Hours after the breach rattled Ukrainian cities, Russia reported a similar digital intrusion against its own civil defense infrastructure. Early Monday morning, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry announced that its official mobile application had been disrupted by what it described as a massive cyberattack.
Russian officials acknowledged on Telegram that the intrusion allowed unauthorized actors to broadcast false information to the Russian public. Ukrainian news agency UNN reported that the Russian app was manipulated to broadcast fabricated warnings of an imminent nuclear emergency inside Russia. A Ukrainian partisan organization operating behind Russian lines, known as Atesh, posted screenshots claiming the Russian system had been targeted, though the imagery could not be independently confirmed.
Ukraine’s Air Alert developers announced early Monday that operations were gradually recovering with reinforced defensive safeguards, while Russian emergency authorities said work continued to restore the integrity of their own mobile notification networks.
