On October 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin marked his 72nd birthday amid considerable chaos. Prominent nationalist thinker Alexander Dugin offered his congratulatory message by declaring, “God save the Tsar.” However, the day was marred by a significant cyberattack on Russian state media, which left nearly a hundred websites inoperable. Reports suggest that the hackers, believed to be based in Ukraine, aimed to “celebrate” Putin’s birthday with this breach.
According to Voice of America, the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), the operator of Russia’s main state television channels, was a major target of this cyber onslaught. Many of its websites became inaccessible, while the Rossiya-24 news channel experienced significant outages. A Ukrainian government source indicated that hackers from Kyiv orchestrated the cyber attack.
Journalists from Reuters reported that when they tried to access the VGTRK website, they encountered an error message stating, “503 Service Unavailable. No server is available to handle the request.”
The Kremlin acknowledged the unique nature of this cyberattack on the state broadcaster’s website, which primarily covers news relating to the war in Ukraine through channels like Russia-1 and Rossiya-24, in addition to over 80 regional TV and radio stations.
An anonymous Ukrainian government source informed Reuters that this cyber operation was executed by Ukrainian hackers as a way to “congratulate” Putin on his birthday.
Russian state media outlet “Rossiya Segodnya” confirmed that the attack focused on VGTRK’s online and internal services, disrupting live streaming and internal functions, alongside internet and phone services, which would require considerable time to fix. An insider described the scale of the attack as “unprecedented.”
While the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs refrained from naming the perpetrators behind the cyberattack, they noted that Russian media has long been a target of the “collective West,” framing the incident as an element of “hybrid warfare.”
Independent Russian journalist Alexander Plyushchev reported, “Starting from 5 a.m., the entire news operation of Russia-1 began to fail. The central control and all servers are down.”
As for birthday wishes, Dugin, a fervent supporter of Putin’s military actions in Ukraine, was among the first to publicly celebrate the president, stating, “God save the Tsar.” The 62-year-old Dugin has consistently advocated for the unification of Russian-speaking areas and other territories into a vast new Russian Empire, which currently includes Ukraine, under military siege.
Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, several notable pro-war figures in Russia have been assassinated, including Dugin’s daughter, Darya Dugina, who lost her life in a car bombing in 2022.
Dugin firmly believes that Putin’s stance against the West and his military initiatives in Ukraine are indeed the correct course of action.
Additionally, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov extended his birthday wishes through Telegram, calling it “the birthday of our nation’s leader, a significant day for the entire homeland.” Kadyrov has often described himself as Putin’s “foot soldier.”
