Hackers hijack Ukraine's air raid app with fake nuclear and radiation alerts; Russia says its app was hit too

Ukraine's official Air Alert app sent false nationwide red alerts late Sunday, followed by fake warnings of radiation, chemical attacks and street fighting in Kyiv and other cities, the Kyiv Independent reports. One message, written in Russian, read: "Hi! A nuclear alert is about to go off all across Ukraine! Don't worry, the Oreshnik is on its way," a reference to Russia's intermediate-range ballistic missile.

"There is no radiation threat," Ukraine's Air Force said, adding that the app had "likely" been compromised by the enemy. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat confirmed the hack to AFP, Euronews reports. The app's developers switched off push notifications and said it stores no personal data. In the Lviv region, the false signal briefly set off a radiation warning on loudspeakers.

Hours later, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said its own alert app had suffered a "massive cyber-attack" that let attackers send false information to the public, The Guardian reports. Neither side's attribution has been independently confirmed.