Rome, Dec. 2, (dpa/GNA) - Numerous Vatican websites have crashed this week without official explanation, leaving them only accessible with restrictions.
The websites – including the home pages of the Holy See, the Vatican museums and the media platform Vatican News – were partially offline on Wednesday, though some could be reached again on Thursday.
This led to speculation that the Vatican’s information technology systems were attacked by hackers. The Holy See did not confirm this, however, it spoke of “anomalies” in connection with access to the Vatican servers.
There was speculation that the problems were an attack by Russian hackers in retaliation for recent statements by Pope Francis critical of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash, tweeted such a claim.
The pope had said in an interview earlier this week that “of course” Russia was the aggressor in the war in Ukraine. He also said that the most brutal soldiers were “possibly from Russia, but have no Russian tradition, ie the Chechens, the Buryats and so on.”
Russia is a multi-ethnic state with numerous ethnic minorities. The Buryats are a people in Siberia related to the Mongols.
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticised Francis’ statements. Lavrov called them “not Christian.”
GNA