Hacking collective Anonymous says it's responsible for bringing down a Belarus government website.
Taking to Twitter on Sunday, February 27, the group shared a screenshot of a server status check for the website, Vpk.gov.by, which is the site for the "State Authority for Military Industry of the Republic of Belarus".
The screenshot shows that the site is "down for everyone". "It is not just you," it reads. "The server is not responding."
The hacking group captioned the image: "TANGO DOWN - State Authority for Military Industry of the Republic of Belarus http://Vpk.gov.by."
This comes after the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, blamed sanctions imposed by the West "for pushing Russia into Third World War", The Independent reports.
Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who declared war on Ukraine last week. Lukashenko recently abandoned Belarus' non-nuclear and neutral stance by allowing Russia to place nuclear weapons on its territory after a referendum over the weekend.
The move by Anonymous comes after it declared a "cyberwar" against Putin's government last week.
The group, which conducted cyberattacks against both governments and corporations, made the announcement on their Twitter account on February 24.
The YourAnonNews Twitter account, which has over 6 million followers, made the stark declaration, saying that the hacking group is "currently involved in operations against the Russian Federation."
"We want the Russian people to understand that we know it's hard for them to speak out against their dictator for fear of reprisals," it said.
"We, as a collective want only peace in the world," it continued. "We want a future for all of humanity. So, while people around the globe smash your internet providers to bits, understand that it's entirely directed at the actions of the Russian government and Putin."
Websites for the Kremlin and State Duma lower house of parliament were also unavailable for some periods of time on Thursday, which may have been the result of DDoS attacks.
As reported by Reuters, Defense Ministry officials in Ukraine requested assistance from the country's hacker underground on Thursday morning to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses.
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