After Ukraine recruits an “IT Army,” dozens of Russian sites go dark

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Cyberspace is feeling the strain of Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine: multiple sites tied to the Kremlin and its allies in Belarus have been unavailable to all or at least major parts of the Internet in recent days.

The outages began last week with the defacement of Russian websites and picked up steam over the weekend, following a call from Ukraine’s vice prime minister for the formation of an “IT Army” to target Russian interests.

A call to arms

“There will be tasks for everyone,” Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote. “We continue to fight on the cyber front. The first task is on the channel for cyber specialists.”