Kherson truce ends as cyberattacks hit Russia and Ukraine

Russia's emergencies ministry said its public warning app came under a "massive cyberattack" on Monday, hours after Ukraine said its own air raid alert system appeared to have been compromised, as the longest truce of the war ended in the southern Kherson region.

The ministry said hackers were able to send "false information" to the public through the app, which is used to warn Russians about incoming drone attacks and other threats. It said its teams were working to fix the attack but did not say who was behind it.

Earlier, baseless alerts of a radiation threat appeared on Ukraine's air raid alert app. "The Air Alarm application has probably been subjected to hostile interference," Ukraine's air force said in a message. "There is no radiation threat." Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat confirmed to AFP that the app had been hacked. Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications SPRAVDI blamed Russia.

The cyber exchanges followed the end of a truce confined to the Kherson region. Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's parliament commissioner for human rights, said the ceasefire had been in effect from Oct 27 to Nov 1, and that it ended after Russia refused an extension. He called the pause "an important step in our joint humanitarian efforts" with Russia.

The Japan Times reported that the truce was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump and allowed a humanitarian mission to Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city. Pope Leo, who had pressed Moscow for the truce, said he hoped it would "strengthen the desire for dialogue and lead to new concrete peace initiatives".

Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin warned residents to be especially vigilant once the ceasefire lapsed and to "respond immediately to warnings about Russian attacks". A Ukrainian military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Russian forces across the Dnipro river had used the calm to bring in troops, move ammunition and gather intelligence with surveillance drones, and that he expected the fighting to be "worse than before".

Strikes continued elsewhere. Russia said a drone struck an "industrial enterprise" east of Moscow overnight, and Ukrainian media reported that Kyiv had attacked the Kstovo oil refinery. Ukraine's energy ministry reported fresh power outages across the country on Sunday, including in Kyiv, after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume this month, having been effectively frozen since February, when the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Fox News on Sunday that Ukraine would stop hitting Russian oil refineries if Washington supplied Patriot interceptor missiles, or if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine's energy system.