Ukrainian Postal Service Hit With Cyberattack After Sale Of 'Russian Warship, Go F*** Yourself' Stamp

The startling and memorable audio clip of a Ukrainian soldier on Snake Island refusing to surrender to a Russian warship is being commemorated.

What Happened: The men defending the island were thought to have been killed after being threatened with an attack, but instead, Russian soldiers took the Ukrainian troops as prisoners and eventually released them in a prisoner swap in Moscow.

Following the standoff, Lviv-based artist Boris Groh created a drawing of the Ukrainian soldier telling the Russian vessel to "go f**k yourself," which was entered into a competition hosted by the Ukrainian National Postal Service (Ukrposhta) to honor the soldiers.

The drawing, which garnered the attention of the Ukrainian government and President Volodymyr Zelensky, won the competition and was turned into a stamp. 

While Ukrposhta announced last week that it had sold over 1 million copies of the stamp, the drawing's popularity also triggered a cyberattack on Ukraine's national postal service.

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Why It Matters: The postal service said Friday it had been hit by a DDoS (distributed denial of systems) attack from an unknown source while apologizing to customers who want to purchase the commemorative stamp.

"Dear customers! DDoS attack on our systems continues as of now. And although we have been able to partially restore them, today the Internet [and] store will not work. We will announce the resumption of work in advance," Ukrposhta said on Facebook.

Although Moscow has disputed reports of cyberattacks, Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has reported 60 separate intrusions since the war began on Feb. 24.

Photo: Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org