DDoS attack on Ukrainian government resources
A number of government websites have been targeted by a powerful DDoS attack, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine said on Facebook.
The attack temporarily disrupted the web services of state-owned PrivatBank and Oschadbank. The websites of the Defence Ministry and the Ukrainian Armed Forces are still saying they are "under technical maintenance". The Education Ministry also reported a DDoS attack on its website.
According to Digital Transformation Minister Mykhaylo Fedorov, the government e-services portal Diia was targeted by malicious traffic from Russia and China, the Czech Republic and Uzbekistan, which was eventually successfully cut off.
Recognition of separatist republics
The Ukrainian delegation in the trilateral contact group has demanded urgent extraordinary consultations because of the Russian Duma's proposal to Putin to recognise the independence of the separatist republics in Ukraine's Donbas.
The recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics will not have any legal consequences, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Mykolenko has said.
"Russia will not be able to pass off the Russian occupying administration in the temporarily occupied territories in Luhansk and Donetsk regions as 'independent entities', nor will it be able to hide its involvement as a party to the armed conflict in Donbas," he said.
With the Russian Duma voting to recognise the DPR and LPR, Moscow is completing the destruction of the Minsk agreements, ex-President Petro Poroshenko has said.
Concern over provocations
Russian-speaking athletic young men have been observed to arrive in Lviv Region to possibly engage in provocations, the local news website Leopolis has said. It quoted a request for help identifying them, which was allegedly sent by the regional office of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to local condominium, hotel and hostel managers.
"The directorate has registered facts of destabilization of the socio-political situation in Ukraine due to manifestations of hybrid warfare in the information space, as well as arrival in the region of people from Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Crimea, Russia and Belarus with the purpose of committing acts of provocative and destabilizing nature, which can be used to undermine the situation in Ukraine by the aggressor country," the SBU's request reads.
Security drills
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is conducting and planning large-scale multi-phase exercises in most regions of Ukraine. During the exercises, attention is paid to practising steps to protect the state border and strategically important facilities, the SBU said. It asked Ukrainians to report any suspicious activity or interest in military and critical infrastructure.