9:37 a.m. ET, December 12, 2023
Today wartime strikes and a suspected cyber attack have plagued Ukraine
From CNN’s Svitlana Vlasova and Victoria Budenko in Kyiv and Benjamin Brown and Caitlin Danaher in London
Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with US lawmakers and President Joe Biden on Tuesday, Russia continues to conduct strikes in Ukraine’s southern Kherson and eastern Kharkiv regions. A suspected cyber attack on Ukraine’s largest mobile operator also disrupted communications and Internet access for millions of users, officials said.
In Kherson: According to the head of the regional military administration on Tuesday, heavy Russian attacks in the Kherson region left one dead and four wounded.
According to Oleksandr Prokudin’s Telegram post, over the past 24 hours, Russia has launched nearly 600 bombs from mortars, crud rocket launchers, artillery, tanks, drones and aircraft 125 times. The city of Kherson was shelled 43 times, Prokudin said.
Residential buildings were hit, including a dormitory and an administration building in Kherson, he said.
Early Tuesday morning, 15 Shahed drones were launched from Crimea, nine of which were destroyed by Ukrainian security forces, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
In Cork: According to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional military administration, one person was killed and another was wounded following Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region.
A 73-year-old civilian died as a result of “hostile artillery shelling” in Kubiansk, Sinihubov said. Another 79-year-old local resident was hospitalized due to “mutilated injuries,” Sinihubov said.
Suspected Hack: Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) on Tuesday opened a criminal investigation into a suspected cyber attack on the country’s largest mobile operator and is investigating Russian interference.
“The Security Service of Ukraine has opened a criminal investigation into a cyber attack on Kyivstar, one of the national mobile operators,” the SBU said in a statement. “One of the versions currently being investigated by SBU investigators is that Russian special services may be behind the hacker attack,” it added.
The suspected hack disrupted communications and Internet access for millions of users, according to mobile operator Kyivstar.
A “powerful hacker attack” “caused a technical outage, causing temporary unavailability of our services: mobile communication and Internet access,” Kyivstar said.
It affected air raid warning systems and banking services in the northern Sumy region, officials said.
Kyivstar will have 24.8 million subscribers by the end of 2022, according to Ukrainian state information agency Ukrinform.
