Ukraine has imposed sanctions on a number of popular Russian internet brands in Ukraine, saying they wanted to guard against cyber attacks. The Kremlin threatened retaliation.
Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s office then accused Russia of a cyber attack against the president’s website but declared it ineffective.
“We have been witnessing Russia’s response to the presidential decree that mentioned closing access to Russian social media. The website of the president is affected by an organized attack,” the deputy head of the presidential administration, Dmytro Shymkiv, said in a statement.
“The situation is under control thanks to our IT-specialists and there is no threat to the work of the website,” he said, reported Reuters.
Companies were sanctioned “whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine”, the Kiev government’s Security and Defence Council said in a statement.
The Russian version of Facebook, Vkontakte, and Yandex, a popular portal and taxi service were impacted, among others. The sanctions only froze property in Ukraine and ordered Ukrainian-based servers not to link to them.
