Ukraine and Russia have been hit by a wave of bogus emergency warnings after air alert applications in both countries were reportedly compromised, raising fears that cyber-attacks are increasingly being used to undermine civilian confidence during the war.
The breaches over the weekend triggered false alarms warning Ukrainians of radiation leaks, chemical attacks, street fighting and an incoming Russian Oreshnik missile. Hours later, users of a similar Russian system received warnings of nuclear drone strikes.
The incidents prompted urgent responses from both governments and exposed the potential for digital attacks to turn trusted public safety infrastructure into a weapon of psychological warfare.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Britain was monitoring the developments closely, although the identity of those responsible for the Ukrainian breach remained unclear.
“We don’t yet know who is behind this particular cyber-attack in Ukraine,” he said. “We’ll follow those developments closely.”
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Streeting added that the UK was in no doubt that Europe had experienced a wider pattern of hybrid and state-sponsored attacks driven by Moscow.
“So we’ll watch this one very closely,” he said.
Ukraine’s air force said its alert system had been compromised, with officials blaming Russia for the breach. The government temporarily disabled the app while it addressed the problem.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said it was working to restore its own alert application to full functionality following the attack.
The simultaneous targeting of systems used by opposing populations highlights the vulnerability of digital infrastructure that millions rely on for warnings about imminent danger. In countries where missile and drone attacks are a regular threat, the credibility of an emergency alert can be a matter of life and death.
Prerana Joshi, a cyber security and resilience expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said the consequences could extend well beyond the immediate disruption.
You need to be able to trust the applications that you’re using, and any compromise of something that is official will naturally have secondary impacts and consequences,” she said.
Joshi warned that restoring the technology would not necessarily restore public confidence.
“So what happens after the app is restored? How does the trust of that emergency alert app work across the population?
The challenge, she said, was not simply communicating during a specific emergency, but ensuring that people continued to believe official warnings when genuine danger emerged.
The incidents underline a growing dimension of the conflict: attacks designed not only to disrupt military or civilian infrastructure, but to manipulate perceptions, spread confusion and erode morale.
For both governments, the damage may therefore persist long after the applications are back online. A population that begins to doubt its emergency warnings may hesitate when the next real attack comes.
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