Russian state media company VGRTK’s online broadcasts crashed on Monday morning. According to Reuters, the reason was a cyber attack by Ukrainian hackers.
The online broadcasts and internal services of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Company of Russia (VGRTK) crashed early Monday morning. About that reported by, among others, Politico.
VGRTK owns, among other things, Russia’s main television channels Rossija 1, Rossija 2 and Rossija 24. On the radio side, it owns, among other things, the public radio station Radio Maja.
After the service outage in the morning, online broadcasts were able to function normally. Kremlin Speaker Dmitry Peskov called what happened an attack on “critical infrastructure facilities”.
According to a source working in the Ukrainian administration interviewed by the news agency Reuters, a cyber attack by Ukrainian hackers was behind the downfall of the websites.
The cyber attack coincided with a significant day for the Russian media: the president Vladimir Putin turns 72 today.