Ukraine's Air Raid Alert App Was Hacked, Sending False Radiation and Street-Fighting Warnings Across the Country
Four false alerts in about three minutes on Sunday night Kyiv time: a radiation threat, a nuclear warning, a chemical attack, street fighting. Ukraine's Air Force says the app its people rely on to survive air strikes was hacked — and that there is no radiation threat.
Ukraine's public air raid alert app was hacked on Sunday night, sending false warnings of a radiation threat, a nuclear alert, a chemical attack and street fighting in Kyiv to users across the country before officials moved to shut the messages down. The false alerts began at about 10:47 p.m. local time, according to BBC reporting: the first declared a radiation threat in Kyiv, a second — written in Russian — referenced Russia's Oreshnik missile, and two more followed minutes later warning of a chemical attack and street fighting in the capital and telling people not to go outside.
Ukraine's Air Force confirmed the breach on Telegram, in the words Reuters carried: the app 'appears to have been subjected to enemy influence. There is no radiation threat! Stay calm and follow our updates on our channel!' Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat confirmed to AFP that the app had been hacked. The app's own team said third parties had interfered with its work, disabled push notifications and temporarily suspended the application, adding that it stores no personal data. In the western Lviv region, the radiation hazard signal was briefly played over loudspeaker systems because of the app, authorities said, repeating that no radiation danger existed, and the governor of the Vinnytsia region, Natalya Zabolotna, called the episode a cyberattack and warned residents not to click any links in the malicious messages.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said the separate nationwide alert system was operating normally. On attribution, the record read this cycle is split, and this story prints it split: Ukraine's strategic communications centre blamed Russia, while the Air Force — the service that owns the warning — described only hostile interference and named no one. The app, backed by Ukraine's Ministry of Digital Transformation, is the signal millions of Ukrainians use to decide when to run for shelter, often with only minutes to spare. For about an hour on Sunday night, that signal lied.
