Ukraine's air force said on Sunday, November 1, 2026 that its public air raid alert app had been hacked and for a short time showed false warnings that Kyiv and other areas faced nuclear, chemical and street-fighting threats, according to ABC News (Australia), which carried Reuters and AFP reporting. Hours later, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said its own emergency warnings app had suffered a “massive cyber attack,” according to the state news agency TASS as relayed by ABC. Who is responsible has not been confirmed, and it is not clear whether the two incidents are linked.

Ukraine

The Ukrainian Air Force said in a Telegram post: “The air alert app appears to have been subjected to enemy influence,” and “There is no radiation threat! Stay calm and follow our updates on our channel!” Al Jazeera, citing the air force, adds that one false message said Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile had been deployed. Ukraine's digital transformation ministry said the app was not operating, and other alert methods, including air raid sirens, were working. Al Jazeera reports that a separate app for the capital worked normally. Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation said: “Currently, the information broadcast [on this application] about threat levels does not correspond to reality.”

Ukraine's Centre for Strategic Communications, SPRAVDI, blamed Russia for the attack in a post on X. ABC's article gives no evidence for that attribution. The air force's wording refers to “enemy influence” without naming a perpetrator, and ABC does not name who operates the app.

Russia

According to TASS, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said its mobile app, which warns of incoming drone attacks and other threats, suffered a “massive cyber attack,” and the ministry said it was working to restore it. Al Jazeera, citing the ministry's Telegram post early Monday, says the attack led to “false information” on the app. Neither report gives the content of the false information on the Russian app, and the ministry did not say who was behind the attack.

Context

The false alerts came minutes after a localized truce in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson region ended, ABC reports, and it describes the pause as the longest since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Al Jazeera says the truce began on a Tuesday, likely October 27 by inference from a related article's date, and ended on Sunday. Its report says it does not establish a link between the end of the truce and the hacks, though the announcements came after it ended. ABC also reports that US-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks are set to resume this month.

Sources and notes

Sources: ABC News (Australia), with Reuters and AFP and Al Jazeera, with AFP and Reuters, both published November 2. Lens did not independently verify the incidents. Al Jazeera reports that no group has claimed responsibility. Neither report gives the duration of the false warnings or how many people received them, and ABC does not reproduce the exact wording of the false messages. The content of the false warnings in Ukraine is attributed to the Ukrainian Air Force and is not independently verified. Lens did not open other outlets' reports of the incidents.

Image: Kyiv skyline (15688086793).jpg by Sergey Galyonkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped. Illustrative photo; it does not show the events described.