The home page of the popular pro-Kremlin news site Lenta.ru was flooded with headlines on Monday that criticized President Vladimir Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Lenta.ru was briefly filled with messages such as "Vladimir Putin lied about Russia's plans in Ukraine" and "Putin unleashed one of the bloodiest wars of the 21st century."
Russian journalists Egor Polyakov and Alexander Miroshnikova told independent Russian outlets that they posted 40 to 45 news facts, cases, and stories about the war that state media have tried to silence in their country.
Polyakov told The Insider that the short takeover of the site was a conscious decision by the two of them to combat Russian propaganda.
Polyakov said he and Miroshnikova were not in Russia when they took over the site.
The Insider reported that panic had ensued among the company's staff after they discovered a lot of headlines on the website. Vladimir Todorov, the site's chief editor, told RIA Novosti that his organization couldn't comment on the hiccup.
190 million people visit Lenta.ru every month, according to web traffic analyzer SimilarWeb.
Polyakov told The Guardian that they had to do it today.
Polyakov said that ordinary people are dying, peaceful women and children are dying in Ukraine. We could not accept this anymore. This was the only thing we could do.
Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9, which is the day the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. Putin used the occasion to frame the war in Ukraine as a war against Nazism.
On the same day, hackers replaced Russian state TV schedules with an anti-war message that said: "On your hands is the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and their hundreds of murdered children." The authorities and TV are lying. No to war.
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