Kyiv blamed Russia for air alert hack while Moscow reported its own attack

Moscow disclosed a major digital assault on its emergency warning service on Monday, Nov. 2, while Kyiv said hackers had compromised its Air Alarm warning application after false radiation notices appeared on the platform.

The emergencies ministry said intruders had posted false content on the application, which exists to warn the public about drone strikes and similar dangers, and that workers were repairing the intrusion that let attackers publish incorrect information. Moscow did not immediately identify who was behind the hack on its app.

Kyiv’s air force said the Air Alarm application had likely been tampered with and that no radiation danger existed. Yuriy Ignat, an air force spokesman, told AFP that hackers had broken into the app. Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications SPRAVDI said Moscow was responsible for compromising the warning application.

Kyiv said the longest wartime truce, confined to eastern Kherson, ended on Sunday after Russia declined to extend it. The pause covered Oct. 27 through Nov. 1, and Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, said it had ended. Lubinets said, “The ceasefire, which was in effect from Oct 27 to Nov 1, has ended,” and called the temporary truce an important step in joint humanitarian efforts with Russia.

US First Lady Melania Trump arranged the pause, which began early Tuesday and allowed a humanitarian mission to Russian-occupied Oleshky. Oleksandr Prokudin, the Kherson regional governor, told people to remain watchful and respond immediately to alerts about Russian attacks. Pope Leo had pressed Russia to accept a truce in Oleshky and said he hoped the pause would foster dialogue and new peace initiatives.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Kyiv would stop strikes on Russian oil refineries if Washington provided powerful Patriot interceptor missiles. “If you want us not to attack Russia’s refineries, they have not to attack our energy system,” said Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia said a drone struck an industrial site east of Moscow overnight, while Ukrainian media said Kyiv attacked the Kstovo oil refinery. Ukraine’s energy ministry said new power outages struck the country on Sunday, including Kyiv, following Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

Kyiv said its repeated strikes on Russian oil and gas sites are fair retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Donald Trump urged Kyiv to stop refinery attacks, saying the higher diesel costs that analysts tie to the Iran war resulted from those strikes.

An unnamed Ukrainian military officer said combat would be more severe than before when fighting restarted. The officer said Russian forces on the far side of the Dnipro river used the lull to gather troops, move ammunition and gather intelligence using surveillance drones.

US-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine are expected to resume in 2026 after being suspended since joint American-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 damaged parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, caused hundreds of thousands of soldier and civilian deaths, and displaced millions.

Kyiv has cooperated with hacktivists (politically motivated hackers) online since the war started, publicly encouraging them to hunt for weaknesses in Russian systems. The IT army of Ukraine works with people around the world and distributes tools and software access to find weaknesses in Russian systems.

The group says its purpose is to move Ukraine’s victory nearer by draining the economies of aggressor countries and disrupting financial, infrastructure, government and major taxpayer operations. It called itself Ukraine’s most powerful community, able to hold more than 800 targets at once. “We are the most powerful community in Ukraine and can simultaneously hold more than 800 targets,” the IT army of Ukraine team said.

Security researcher Uzair Sheikh, using a changed name, said he helped uncover weaknesses in Moscow systems including Moscow Metro, Gazprom and the Russian Central Bank. On March 31, 2025, the Moscow Metro website sent visitors to the Ukrainian Railways Ukrzaliznytsia homepage. The Russian Central Bank had been breached before, and its systems were halted for a substantial period.

Ukraine’s digital department initiative has encouraged people around the world to join in disrupting Russian systems. Officials use Telegram groups where technicians search for weaknesses and shut down important systems, causing disruptions.