Russian Government Websites Go Down Amid Invasion Of Ukraine

Several Russian government websites went dark early Thursday amid ongoing fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Kremlin.ru, the website for Russia’s executive branch of government, went dark Thursday morning and could not be reached. The website was down for all visitors, according to outage tracking site isitdownrightnow.com.

Duma.gov.ru, the website for the lower house of Russia’s legislature, is also reportedly unreachable for all visitors, having gone down Thursday morning, according to isitdownrightnow.com. The websites are unreachable from several foreign IP addresses, VICE reported.

The websites remain down at the time of publication.

It’s unclear whether the outages are the result of a cyberattack waged against the Russian government; Russia deployed “data-wiping malware” and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Ukrainian government websites Wednesday in a bid to disrupt the country’s communications.

The outages come amid ongoing fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces as Russian troops make advances into Ukrainian territory.

Russia’s Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information, the agency tasked with administering internet communications, did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.