Hacked Russian TV and radio stations broadcast chilling news of a nuclear attack, urging residents to put on gas masks and take cover.
On Thursday, residents in eastern Russia were told to “take potassium iodide pills” and get to safety immediately during the hacked broadcast, according to a Metro report.
“There was a strike. Go to emergency shelter urgently,” TV viewers were told as a map of Russia showed the country turning red from west to east. “Seal off the premises. Use gas masks of all kinds. If gas masks are not available, use cotton gauze bandages.”
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The full moon lights up the sky above the Moscow Kremlin waterfront. (Marina Lystseva/TASS via Getty Images)
Screens also showed a black and yellow radiation alert with a message urging people to “seek shelter immediately.”
The news was seen on television and heard on radio stations in the Moscow and Sverdlovsk regions. The news also interrupted the program in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city.
The hack was so widespread that it forced Russia’s Emergencies Ministry to respond, issuing a statement assuring residents that a “fake air raid alert was broadcast in Moscow after radio station and TV station servers were hacked.”
Rescue workers survey the scene of a Russian attack on Kiev, Ukraine.
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Hackers have frequently targeted Russians with messages of fake attacks since the country launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, including a siren that sounded an “air raid alert” on February 22 and another less than a week later broadcast a “missile threat”.
The day before the latest hack, streaming services in Russia were hacked and taken offline during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Union address.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (Sputnik / Mikhail Metzel / Kremlin via Portal)
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A group called the IT Army of Ukraine, formed shortly after the invasion, claimed responsibility for the attack on the streaming services, but has claimed no credit for the more recent dire warning on Russian TV and radio.