Moscow: A Russian radio station which is owned by one of Vladimir Putin’s ‘favourite oligarchs’ was swiftly pulled off air after a hacker started playing Ukrainian anthem and anti-war songs, Daily Mail reported.
Kommersant FM was broadcasting their lunchtime news bulletin before suddenly being cut off by the Ukrainian military anthem ‘Oh the red viburnum in the meadow’.
The radio station, which is another string of the Kommersant national newspaper in Russia, is owned by 68-year-old Russian businessman and oligarch Alisher Usmanov, Daily Mail reported.
The European Union sanctioned Usmanov following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February by imposing an EU-wide travel ban on him and freezing all of his assets. The US imposed similar sanctions.
Described as a pro-Kremlin oligarch who has ‘particularly close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’ and one of ‘Putin’s favourite oligarchs’ by the Official Journal of the European Union, the hacking of his radio station is the latest in a string of Ukrainian stunts on Russian media.
Usmanov, who was a shareholder in English football team Arsenal from 2017 to 2018, is also the fifth richest person in Russia and among the world’s wealthiest 100 individuals with an estimated net worth of $19.5 billion, Daily Mail reported.
Editor-in-chief of Kommersant FM, Alexey Vorobyov, said of the radio station going off air: “We really were hacked. Technical specialists are now finding out the origin of this attack, trying to do something with the internet stream.”
