Putin silenced by Pro-Ukrainian hackers during DDoS attack on Russian media

Pro-Ukrainian cyber attack causes Russian state media to go down during a speech by President Vladimir Putin.

Pro-Ukrainian hackers have claimed responsibility for a DDoS attack against Russian state media causing a blackout during President Vladimir Putin's State of the Nation address to the Russian parliament.

Putin was delivering the live-steaming address to Russia’s two houses of parliament Tuesday when journalists in multiple locations reported being unable to access the live broadcast at different points of the speech.

State-run RIA Novosti news agency first reported the outage was the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

The IT Army of Ukraine congratulated themselves soon after on Twitter and on their Telegram account.

Another pro-Ukrainian hacking group, reportedly affiliated with the known Russian dissident and activist Alexei Navalny, also claimed on Twitter they had helped the IT army successfully complete the attack, according to Newsweek.

The IT Army of Ukraine is a conglomerate of hacktivist volunteers called on by the Ukrainian government to help conduct cyber offensive operations and support the nation against Russian cyberattacks.

The state media and websites affected by the hack include the All-Russia State Television, Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) website, and the Smotrim live-streaming platform.

A message on the VGTRK website said that "technical works were being carried out" while the Smotrim website was not loading, reported Reuters.

Just before one of the intermittent outages, Putin had been discussing Russia’s planned exit from the START treaty - a strategic offensive arms treaty which caps the number of warheads the US and Russia can deploy, reported Reuters.