Russian authorities said Tuesday that several regional television and radio stations that have recently broadcast air raid alerts had been breached by hackers.
The alerts are common across Ukraine, which is routinely targeted by drone and missile attacks, but the impact of fighting within Russia is limited to regions bordering the conflict.
"As a result of hacking of servers of radio stations and TV channels, in some regions of the country, information about the announcement of an air raid alert was broadcast," Russia’s emergencies ministry said in a statement.
"This information is false and does not correspond to reality," it added.
Russian media reported that the alerts had been broadcast in the Belgorod and Voronezh regions bordering Ukraine, near Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
The emergencies ministry said a similar cyberattack last week triggered air raid sirens across Russia.
The hackers targeted only private radio and television stations.
The breaches came shortly after the first anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...’s decision to send troops into Ukraine in February last year.
Several Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been targeted in attacks that Moscow has blamed on Ukraine.