The internet is down across Ukraine amid missile strikes in what appears to be retaliation for Saturday’s attack on the Crimea bridge.
On Monday morning, Ukrainian citizens woke up to the sound of missile strikes hammering across the country. According to the Ukrainian Prime Minister, 11 major infrastructure targets were hit in eight regions. This led to disruptions or complete outages of power, water, or heat in different parts of Ukraine.
Internet was also severely affected: real-time network data from Netblocks shows severe internet disruptions in multiple Ukranian regions amid power outages.
Elon Musk has previously reportedly provided thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine to avoid disruption to the internet connection. However, news of Ukrainian soldiers having connectivity issues with Starlink devices on the front lines has recently been made public by Financial Times.
Some speculated that the outages might be related to SpaceX trying to prevent the misuse of Starlink by Russian forces. Musk refused to comment on the situation happening on the battlefield.
Following the blast on the Kerch bridge linking Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula, several Russian politicians jumped in to attribute the attack to Kyiv and threaten retaliation. As such, Vladimir Putin said:
“This was devised, carried out, and ordered by the Ukraine special services.”
The Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, called the explosion “a terrorist act and sabotage committed by the criminal Kyiv regime,” saying that Russia will respond through “the direct destruction of terrorists.”
Additional information from Ukraine's defense ministry revealed that Russia had fired 81 cruise missiles on Monday, with Ukraine shooting down 43 of them.
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