Russian YouTube, pro-Kremlin sites, television... what do we know about the spectacular hacks in Russia?

What is happening in the Russian media and sites?

Since Monday morning, Rutube has been unresponsive and may never come back online.

According to its administrators, the Russian equivalent of YouTube has been rendered inaccessible by "a large-scale attack", "the largest cyberattack in the history of the company", can we read in an official message addressed to the community from Rutube, on the Telegram messaging app.

“After the websites of Russian agencies, which have been under constant cyberattack over the past two months, hackers have reached Rutube.

The video hosting site was the subject of a major cyberattack.

It is currently impossible to access the platform,” the site administrators said on their social networks on Monday.

According to these messages, it would be an “Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)” attack, a mode of action known to be planned and which targets a specific entity.

“Someone really wanted to stop Rutube from showing the Victory Day parade and the celebratory fireworks.

It is not a sin to remember the battles we have won,” Rutube teams asserted.

Several incidents on the day of the commemorations

On the same day, Russian government-owned telecom operators such as NTV Plus, Rostelecom, MTS, as well as the Russian Ministry of Defense channel TV Zvezda and the private operator Wink also deplored "cyberattacks".

“Television and the government lie.

No to war”, “The blood of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of their children is on your hands”, could be read in the teletext of several Russian channels.

On Russian television channels, the teletext which gives information on the current program had been hijacked with a propaganda message.

These messages also appeared on Yandex, the Russian equivalent of Google, which offers a service of TV programs.

These blows come as Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed on Monday that his army was fighting in Ukraine to defend "the fatherland" against the "unacceptable threat" posed by its neighbor supported by the West, in front of thousands of Russian soldiers marching through Red Square in Moscow to mark the anniversary of the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany.

This wave of incidents echoes several other attempts to alert Russian opinion to the fate of Ukrainians.

Early in the war, hackers from Anonymous claimed an attack on Russian state media and posted messages calling for an "end" to the Russian invasion.

On March 14, the news of the main Russian channel was interrupted by a protester, Marina Ovsiannikova.