Unknown hackers breached Ukraine's nationwide emergency alert app late Sunday, pushing notifications warning Kyiv residents of imminent nuclear radiation, chemical threats, and street fighting. The messages arrived in English (with spelling errors), Ukrainian, and Russian — the last claiming Oreshnik ballistic missiles were inbound. Many residents recognized the compromise immediately; others did not. "I was briefly terrified," one Kyiv woman, Nina, said. "I lay on my bed and wondered what was coming." The Ukrainian emergency service confirmed "unauthorised parties" had interfered with the app and suspended the channel, warning users not to click suspicious links. Russian officials claimed their own emergency ministry app had also been hacked. A Russian Telegram channel with security-service ties, Mash, attributed the attack to a group called Hitcore, citing representatives who claimed responsibility. The claim could not be independently verified. The cyber operation landed against the backdrop of renewed kinetic attacks on Kherson. A Russian drone struck a hospital at 7:40am Monday morning — video showed blown-out windows, broken doors, and street debris, though officials reported no casualties. The attack came hours after the expiration of a six-day ceasefire brokered by first lady Melania Trump to evacuate civilians from Russian-controlled Oleshky. That ceasefire is now the subject of sharp scrutiny. Footage shared with Sky News showed Russian soldiers deploying heavy military equipment, delivering ammunition, carrying supplies into burned-out buildings, and moving armoured vehicles through Oleshky's streets during the truce. The commander of Ukraine's 34th Separate Marine Brigade, Dmitry Pulinets, said Russian soldiers had previously been unable to drive in the city at any hour due to Ukrainian drone threats. "Now they have this opportunity. And for the last few days this movement has been happening constantly," he told Sky News. Both sides publicly declared the ceasefire a success. Ukraine's ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, who coordinated the mission in Oleshky, said it could be repeated in other occupied Kherson-region cities and reported daily contact with Melania Trump's aide Marc Beckman. The precise split of evacuees heading to Ukraine versus Russia was kept secret by agreement with Moscow. Ukrainian media reported most buses went through Crimea to Gomel, Belarus; Trump said more than 750 people departed. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday there were no immediate plans for another truce and characterized the military repositioning as standard practice. Meanwhile, in western Vinnytsia, a drone strike next to an education facility killed two civilians — a 13-year-old girl who died at the scene and a woman who died later in hospital. Several other children were wounded. The attack underscored the unchanged tempo of Russian strikes against civilian targets even as diplomatic channels around Oleshky briefly opened. The fake nuclear alert and the ceasefire exploitation are two faces of the same problem: the weaponization of trust infrastructure. Emergency apps work only if citizens trust them. Ceasefires work only if adversaries don't use them for tactical advantage. Both trust mechanisms were degraded in the same 48-hour window.
