Russia invades Ukraine: the latest news on connectivity, cryptocurrency, and more – The Verge

Telegram is reportedly being slowed down and restricted in Russia

2026-02-11T12:08:36-05:00

Telegram users in Russia may begin noticing service disruptions on Tuesday after Russia's communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, reportedly moved to slow down and restrict access to the app, as reported by Russian news outlet RBC.

Roskomnadzor said in a statement to RBC, translated using machine translation, that it "will continue to introduce successive restrictions" on Telegram, claiming the app is not taking adequate steps to prevent fraud and criminal activity. Reuters quotes Telegram users in Moscow who confirmed that they've been experiencing issues with the app, including a woman named Anna, who said, "It's very bad because all my …

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France accuses Russia of a decade’s worth of high-profile cyberattacks

2025-04-29T19:15:07-04:00

France’s President Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting with representatives of the sectors affected by US tariffs, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on April 3, 2025. | Image: MOHAMMED BADRA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

In an unprecedented display of diplomatic aggression, French authorities publicly accused Russia of sponsoring several high-profile cyber attacks on French entities for over a decade to gather intelligence and destabilize the country. The incidents include everything from a faked Islamic State takeover of a French television broadcast signal in 2015 to the leak of President Emmanuel Macron's emails in 2017.

On Tuesday, France's Foreign Ministry formally attributed those cyberattacks and several others to APT28, a Russian military intelligence (GRU) hacking unit also known as Fancy Bear, best known in America for leaking Hillary Clinton's em …

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Telegram says CEO has ‘nothing to hide’ after being arrested in France

2024-08-25T23:38:51-04:00

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. | Photo: Getty Images

Telegram says its CEO and founder Pavel Durov has "nothing to hide" after he was arrested by French authorities outside of Paris.

"It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform," the company says in an unnamed statement posted to its official channel in the Telegram app on Sunday. French officials have confirmed to multiple outlets that Durov was arrested as part of a police investigation into criminal activity taking place on the social network.

"Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information," reads the company's statement. "We're …

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National Guard member arrested for leaking classified documents on Discord

2023-04-13T17:00:54-04:00

Law enforcement officials have linked a trove of classified government documents leaked on Discord to a 21-year-old Air National Guard member, as reported earlier by NBC News. The suspect, Jack Teixeira, was arrested at his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday.

"Today, the Justice Department arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

The Pentagon first discovered the sensitive documents posted to Discord, Twitter, Telegram, and 4chan last week. …

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Microsoft sold software to sanctioned Russian companies, says US government

2023-04-07T15:27:14-04:00

Microsoft has agreed to pay over $3 million in fines for selling software to sanctioned entities and individuals in Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Russia from 2012 to 2019. The US Department of the Treasury says that "the majority of the apparent violations involved blocked Russian entities or persons located in the Crimea region of Ukraine" and that the company will be paying around $2.98 million to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (or OFAC) and $347,631 to the Department of Commerce. (It settled for $624,013 but will receive a credit for its agreement with the Treasury.)

According to an enforcement notice from OFAC, Microsoft, Micr …

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Mark Hamill voices air raid warnings in Ukraine as Luke Skywalker

2023-03-29T06:33:29-04:00

Star Wars actor Mark Hamill has lent his voice to a Ukrainian air raid app to warn citizens of incoming attacks during the ongoing conflict with Russia. "Attention. Air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter," says Hamill over Air Alert, an app linked to Ukraine's air defense system. When the threat has passed, Hamill signs off with "The alert is over. May the Force be with you."

Invoking his beloved Luke Skywalker character, some of the lines contain recognizable quotes from the Star Wars franchise like "Don't be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness." You can hear a few lines in the following video starting around 56 seconds …

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s Ukrainian developer is being blackmailed by pro-Russian hackers

2023-03-13T15:39:08-04:00

GSC Game World, the Ukrainian studio developing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, says it has been hacked and that the hackers are threatening to blackmail the company, according to a statement shared on Twitter on Sunday.

"Recently, our employee's account for a collective work-with-images application was hacked," GSC Game World wrote in the statement. The hackers are "threatening to use the obtained data for blackmail and intimidation," the studio said.

It's apparently not the first cybersecurity threat the team has faced. "We have been enduring constant cyberattacks for more than a year now," GSC Game World said. "We have faced black …

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Ukraine nets 10,000 additional Starlink terminals, claims funding issues are ‘resolved’

2022-12-21T06:07:01-05:00

Starlink terminals have provided essential satellite internet service to Ukraine as the Russian invasion targets Ukraine’s communications infrastructure. | Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Ukraine's deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov has announced that over 10,000 additional Starlink terminals will be sent to Ukraine in the coming months, confirming that issues regarding how to fund the country's critical satellite internet service have been resolved.

The governments of several European Union countries are ready to share payment said Fedorov (who is also Ukraine's minister for digital transformation) in an interview with Bloomberg, affirming that "As of now all financial issues have been resolved." Fedorov did not publicly identify which governments are contributing towards the payments but confirmed that there's current …

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SpaceX almost doubles its current Starlink prices in Ukraine

2022-11-30T13:53:19-05:00

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The price of Starlink terminals in Ukraine will increase from the equivalent of $385 to about $700. | Image: Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters

The price of a Starlink satellite terminal has almost doubled in Ukraine, according to a report from the Financial Times, following increased demand for the SpaceX satellite devices and targeted Russian attacks on the country's electrical grid that have caused communications networks to fail.

Starlink terminals in Ukraine are set to increase from the equivalent of $385 to about $700. The monthly subscription required to use the service will also climb from $60 to $75 on December 29th according to emails sent to Ukrainian Starlink customers, though this is still cheaper than its original $100 rate, which was dropped back in August to "reflec …

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What on earth is going on with Elon Musk and Ukraine?

2022-10-21T08:00:00-04:00

Who’s whispering in Elon Musk’s ear? | Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Look, I've been avoiding talking about Elon Musk's meddling in international affairs largely because I am not expert enough in international affairs to say much of anything. But now we've got Fiona Hill, formerly an advisor to Donald Trump who gave testimony at his first impeachment hearing, out here suggesting that Musk is "transmitting a message for Putin."

This shit's weird, dude, even for me. Musk set off an international shitposting incident by tweeting a peace proposal for the war in Ukraine. In response, sitting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy polled Twitter about whether users preferred a pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine Musk; sitt …

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