Internet users across Ukraine have faced outages following a technical failure on the network of communications company Kyivstar, which said it had fallen victim to hackers.
The outages were first announced just after 8 a.m. Tuesday by the company on its Facebook page. Its statement said the technical problems had meant that communication services and internet access might be unavailable for subscribers.
Kyivstar is Ukraine's largest electronic communications operator with over 24 million mobile subscribers and one million home internet subscribers. It also provides 4G, Big Data, Cloud solutions, cybersecurity services and digital TV.
"The company's specialists are working on resolving the issue," Kyivstar said. "We apologize to subscribers for the temporary difficulties and thank you for your understanding."
In a follow-up statement several hours later, Kyivstar said it had fallen victim to a "powerful" attack by hackers which caused a "technical failure that resulted in mobile connection and internet access services being temporarily unavailable."
"Specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of a hacking attack to restore communication and service as soon as possible," Kyivstar said. "We apologize for the temporary inconvenience and thank you for your understanding."
Kyivstar described its work to restore services as a "challenge" and involved working with state services and law enforcement. It said that the personal data of subscribers had not been compromised.
"Yes, our enemies are treacherous. But we are ready to face any difficulties, overcome them and continue to work for Ukrainians," the statement said.
Over the course of the war started by Moscow, there have been constant outages of electricity and water due to repeated Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Moscow has also been blamed for cyberattacks on Ukraine, although Russia was not mentioned by name in Kyivstar's statement. Newsweek reached out to Kyivstar for further comment.
People took to social media to report problems with both mobile and wired networks in the Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv oblasts. The operator's official website was also down.
Underneath the company's statements were more than a thousand comments from Facebook users asking how they could access internet services and when they would start running again. There were also messages of support for the communications company. "We will survive this," wrote one user. "We believe in your work," wrote another.
In October, Kyivstar, whose parent group is Amsterdam-based firm VEON, said its operations had not been affected by the seizure of assets held in it by Russian sanction-targeted oligarchs Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and Andrey Kosogov.
Update 12/12/23, 9:47 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more
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