Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship airline, said it had canceled more than 50 round-trip flights on Monday, citing a failure of its information systems after a shadowy pro-Ukrainian hacking group claimed it had conducted a devastating cyberattack against the carrier.
Russian prosecutors confirmed that the airline disruption was a result of hacking and opened a criminal investigation. The Kremlin called the situation “worrying.”
Over the past months, Ukraine and groups that back it have made an effort to disrupt everyday life in Russia.
Ukrainian drones have targeted areas around Russian airports, wreaking havoc in terminals during the high vacation season. The attacks and airport closures have become near-daily occurrences in major Russian cities, causing hundreds of flight delays, cancellations and diversions, and affecting thousands of travelers.
Aeroflot said on Monday that it had to cancel dozens of flights out of Sheremetyevo International Airport, near Moscow. Most were to fly within Russia but some international ones were also canceled, the airline said, adding that it had to make “forced adjustments to the flight schedule, including partial fight cancellations.” It 56 of its 260 scheduled round-trip flights had been canceled.
The company also said that its ticket refund function was not available because the hack caused its information systems to fail. As of Monday evening, personal account access on Aeroflot’s website remained restricted.
Last week, more than 50 passenger trains south of central Russia were delayed after a drone attack hit a major station, Russian Railways company said in a statement. And on Thursday, drones attacked the Russian resort town of Sochi on the Black Sea, killing two and forcing hotels to evacuate their guests.
Drone attacks have also led to disruptions in Russia’s mobile networks, curtailing everyday services like deliveries, taxis and car sharing.
Some analysts said the actions appeared to be part of a broad, calculated campaign.
“Ukraine’s actions reveal the features of a planned consecutive effort,” said Valery Shiryaev, a Russian independent war analyst. “At the onset of the resort season when many Russians fly out to vacations, flights get disrupted over and over again.”
Russia, which began the war with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has been launching thousands of drones at Ukraine in assaults that have steadily escalated in recent months, even as cease-fire talks began in the spring.
A hacking group called Silent Crow said Monday that its attack on Aeroflot was a joint effort with a Belarusian group called Cyber Partisans and was the result of a “lengthy and large-scale operation.” Silent Crow said it was able to penetrate deep into Aeroflot’s information systems, leaving it “completely destroyed and compromised.”
Cyber Partisans said its attacks would continue as long as the Russian government “poses a direct threat to the territorial integrity and independence of Belarus and Ukraine.”
The hacking groups’ statements could not be independently verified. A Russian communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, told the country’s state news agencies that Aeroflot clients’ and employees’ data had not been compromised.
Earlier this year, Silent Crow also claimed responsibility for attacks against a Russian real estate database, a state telecoms company and the Moscow city I.T. department among other targets.
Speaking about the Aeroflot attack, Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that “hacking is a threat that remains for all large companies.”
Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
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