Ukrainian media has reported large-scale Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the websites of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, military, Privatbank and Oschadbank, the two largest banks in Ukraine.
The reports of a massive cyberattack against Ukraine comes as the country remains in a tense standoff with Russia.
Earlier Tuesday, Russia announced that it had begun withdrawing some soldiers from the Ukrainian, signaling a potential de-escalation of tensions.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that the Ukrainian government would believe that the situation had deescalated only upon witnessing a Russian withdrawal from its borders, the Interfax news agency reported.
“We continuously hear different statements from the Russian federation, so we have a rule … we believe what we see. If we see the pullout we will believe in de-escalation,” he said.
Russia published videos of tanks and other armored vehicles being loaded onto railway flatcars as they were being prepared to be returned to their bases.
On Monday, a senior US official that several Russian military units were moving into attack positions along the Ukrainian border, further raising fears that an invasion was imminent. According to US intelligence assessments, the Russian army was expected to invade Ukraine by the end of this week.
