Russian state media company VGTRK, which operates the nation’s primary TV stations, was hit by a significant cyberattack on Monday. According to a Ukrainian government source, the attack was orchestrated by Ukrainian hackers, coinciding with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 72nd birthday.
VGTRK’s website and its 24-hour news channel, Rossiya-24, were both inaccessible early on Monday, displaying a “503 Service Unavailable” error message. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the incident, describing it as an “unprecedented hacker attack on its digital infrastructure” and stated that specialists are investigating the origins of the breach.
The Ukrainian government source told Reuters that the cyberattack was a deliberate effort to “congratulate” Putin on his birthday by targeting the state broadcaster. However, Reuters has not independently verified this claim.
Gazeta.ru reported that the cyberattack affected VGTRK’s online and internal services, including its radio stations and regional TV channels. The attack was so severe that it even disrupted the company’s internet and telephony services. According to an unnamed source cited by Gazeta.ru, hackers allegedly wiped all data from VGTRK’s servers, including backups, and operations have been in lockdown mode since early morning.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, did not directly blame anyone for the attack but suggested that Russian media has long been a target of what she called “the collective West.” She labeled the incident as part of a broader “hybrid war” against Russia and indicated that Moscow would address the cyberattack at international platforms, including UNESCO.
