Ukrainian Post Office Affected By DDoS After Releasing Stamps Of Sinking Russian Ship

The sinking of the Moskva became the image of a postage stamp in Ukraine. (photo: twitter @Damask1995)

JAKARTA - Ukraine's national postal service, Ukrposhta, announced that it had been hit by a cyber-attack on Friday, April 22, after the sale of postage stamps depicting a Ukrainian soldier making a rude gesture at a Russian warship.

Ukrposhta @ukrposhta announced the release of a new series of stamps "Russian Warship... Done!" The increase in circulation of the previous series was refused, so as not to devalue the efforts of people who stood in long lines to buy them. pic.twitter.com/IIEXMvtUeK

— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) April 23, 2022

Queues appeared to buy stamps when they went on sale at post offices in Kyiv last week after the sinking of the main ship of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Kyiv said it had hit the cruiser Moscow with a missile. Russia said the ship sank while being towed in a stormy sea after a fire caused by an ammunition explosion.

Ihor Smilianskyi, Director General of Ukrposhta, issued an apology to customers for what he said was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack but did not say who might be behind it.

"We did absolutely everything, together with internet providers, to restore the online shop and other Ukrposhta systems which were also temporarily down due to DDos attacks on our systems," he wrote on Facebook.

Ukrainian officials have been warning of the dangers of cyberattacks by Russian hackers since Vladimir Putin invaded the country on February 24. Moscow has consistently denied allegations that it has launched cyber attacks in Ukraine.

Ukraine said earlier this month that it had thwarted an attempt by Russian hackers to damage its power grid with a cyberattack.