January 17, 2022: -A massive cyberattack warning Ukrainians to “be afraid and expect the worst” has reached government websites on Thursday night, leaving some websites inaccessible and prompting Ukraine to open an investigation on Friday.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson said to Reuters it was early to say who could be the reason behind the attack but said Russia had been behind the same kind of strikes in the past.

The cyberattack, which reached the ministry of foreign affairs, the cabinet of ministers, and the security and defense council, among others, comes as Kyiv and its allies have sounded the alarm about a possible military offensive on Ukraine.

Russia has previously been denied for being behind cyber attacks on Ukraine.

“Ukrainian! All your data was uploaded to the public network. All data on the computer is destroyed; it is impossible to restore it,” said a message visible on hacked government websites, written in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

“All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future.”

The U.S warned that the threat of a Russian military invasion was high. Russia said dialogue was keeping up but was hitting a dead end as it tried to persuade the West to bar Ukraine from joining NATO and roll back decades of alliance expansion in Europe, demands that the United States has called “non-starters.”

“It’s too early to conclude, but there is a long record of Russian assaults against Ukraine in the past,” the foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters.

A top Ukrainian security official told Reuters, “All cyber security subjects were aware of possible provocations by the Russian Federation. Hence, the response to these incidents is carried out as usual.”