While most people think the attack must have something to do with Russia’s military pressure on the country, it does seem a little anaemic. To be fair, neither the Ukranian nor US government has accused the Russians.

Matt Tait, a security analyst known by the moniker pwnallthethings, tweeted that the DDoS was not “part of the invasion” and urged caution in reporting.
In a tweet posted at around 7PM local time (12PM ET), the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said that its website was probably being hit with a DDoS attack and that work to restore service was underway. Four hours later, the site still could not be accessed.

The DDoS attack comes as Russia has claimed to be de-escalating potential conflict by withdrawing troops from the Ukraine border — a statement that was met with “cautious optimism” by NATO but has also faced scepticism amid a series of contradictory signals from the Russian military.

According to a statement from the Ukrainian government’s Center for Strategic Communications, PrivatBank faced a “massive DDoS attack” that blocked many online banking services, including payments and balance inquiries, but did not affect core banking services or threaten customer funds. Oschadbank also lost all online banking functionality, according to the statement.

A few hours later, another statement from the Ukrainian government said that the banks had resumed online service.