Fake nuclear warning from hacked Ukrainian alert app causes brief alarm
A cyber‑attack on Ukraine’s emergency notification apps sent false nuclear and street‑fighting alerts before being debunked.
Ukrainians have grown weary of the relentless alerts blaring from their phones and echoing through their streets, day and night, warning of Russian drones and missiles.
On Sunday night the system delivered a succession of more extreme threats that quickly escalated to impending nuclear strikes, chemical attacks and combat on the streets.
The first thing I saw was the word ‘nuclear’ and that made me pretty nervous and scared, said Sofia Kochmar, 34, a mother‑of‑one in Lviv, adding that the mention of “street fighting in Kyiv” made her doubt the messages.
Within 15 minutes Ukraine’s Air Force issued a statement that the alert app had been compromised and that there was no radiation threat, though an “all‑clear” was not sent until more than an hour later.
Anastasiia Romanytska, a 29‑year‑old ballerina in Kyiv who does not have the app installed, said friends forwarded the warnings to her. She described a stress reaction but ultimately felt the alerts were not serious.
Several apps deliver phone notifications of air‑raid warnings using the same official data, and some of the hacked messages were written in Russian and included a link to a Telegram channel apparently owned by a hacker group.
Yevhen Baliutov, a cybersecurity expert at the Kyiv School of Economics, told the BBC the hack was clearly Russian, noting that many Ukrainians clicked the link and could face further disinformation, phishing or data breaches.
The episode added a brief spike of unease but did not spark widespread panic across the country.
