On Saturday, the official website of the Kremlin, associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin (Kremlin.ru), went down following reports of cyberattacks on various other Russian government sites and official media. A spokesperson for the Kremlin stated that the Russian presidency had detected ongoing cyberattacks on its website. The Russian channel "RT" did not provide any additional details from spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. Subsequently, several government websites in Russia experienced cyberattacks.
Russia began a military operation on February 24, targeting cities and military bases in Ukraine after weeks of military tension and buildup on the Ukrainian border. Russia views Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO as a threat to its national security and has demanded that NATO not expand eastward to Ukraine or former Soviet republics, but the West has rejected Moscow's requests for guarantees.
When announcing the military operation, President Putin stated that "Russia cannot feel secure, develop, and exist with the continuous threat emanating from the territories of modern Ukraine." Before the military operation began, Putin issued a decree on February 21 recognizing the sovereignty of the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
On Friday, the company "Meta," the parent company of the giant social media platform Facebook, announced that it had decided to prevent Russian official media from publishing ads or engaging in revenue-generating activities on its platform anywhere in the world. The company's head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, stated on Twitter, "We are also placing restrictions on additional Russian state media... These changes have already begun to roll out and will continue into next week." He added, "We are now preventing Russian state media from publishing ads or engaging in revenue-generating activities on our platform anywhere in the world." Earlier, Twitter officially announced a temporary suspension of ads in Ukraine and Russia.
