Russian hackers hacked the satellite broadcasts of the Starlight Media and Inter channels and broadcast the Victory Day parade in Moscow in the morning of May 9. Videos of the broadcasts in Ukraine’s Odesa region could be seen circulating on Telegram, with one Telegram channel saying: “All channels are now showing a parade of killers,” Kyiv Post reports.

The National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting confirmed the incident and said the providers switched to a different broadcasting protocol in response.

The first attack began at 10.00. The Russians started broadcasting the parade in Moscow on Red Square on several Ukrainian channels. It lasted from 10.00 to 10.18. After that the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting reported that the signal of the channels was restored.

According to regulator member Maksym Onoprienko, the channels promptly launched a security protocol to shut down the signal. "Providers switched to a different way of receiving the signal. But there was a several-minute interference in the airwaves, during which the victory parade from Moscow was broadcast. The channels have returned to their broadcast networks," he said.

However, after that, repeated attacks began.

According to Starlight Media, after the restoration of broadcasting at 11.27, interference with the satellite signal began again, at 11.29 SES turned off the signal on the satellite. At 12:43, the broadcast of the channels was switched on. However, at 12.51 a new attack and content replacement began. Therefore, the broadcast was turned off again at 12.55. It was turned on only at 14.20.

As Mykola Chernotytskyi, chairman of the NOTU board, told Detector Media, the public broadcaster was also hacked. Hackers jammed the signal and tried to replace the content with the broadcast of the parade. The public signal in SD format on the satellite was turned off.

According to the press service of the Dim channel, the attackers also jammed the signal and temporarily replaced the channel's content with a broadcast of a parade in Moscow.

The My-Ukraine+ press service also reported on the enemy's interference in the channel's satellite broadcasting on Astra 4A.

The editor-in-chief of Apostrophe TV Alina Blokhina wrote on her Facebook page that their air was hacked: "The enemy is weak-minded, so he is always thinking about something - sometimes to get into websites, sometimes to disrupt the satellite signal. I apologize to the viewers for what happened, and I urge you to always keep our YouTube broadcast handy."

Later, the press service of Inter Media Group reported that Inter did not broadcast the parade in Moscow. "According to the information we received from the satellite operator SES Astra AB, on May 9, 2024, broadcasts via the Astra 4A satellite suffered interference from a powerful external radio signal: according to monitoring data, TV channels Inter, K1, Mega, NTN, Pixel TV and Enter-Film suffered a break in the broadcast lasting 17 seconds — from 11:09:48 to 11:10:05. After that, no interference was observed. No changes in the content of these channels have been recorded. All Astra-4A spacecraft equipment and SES ground infrastructure were operational during these incidents and are currently operating as normal."

The First Deputy Chairman of the National Council Valentyn Koval said that the regulator is preparing a letter to the International Telecommunication Union, a special unit of the UN.

At the same time, Balticom, a Latvian television network, was also hacked and broadcast the parade in Moscow, reported Ivars Abolins, Latvia’s chairman of the National Electronic Media Council (NEPLP), on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Meanwhile, Russian sources also reported that the internet broadcasts of local networks in multiple regions – including occupied Crimea – were hacked, with footage of the war in Ukraine and pro-Ukrainian messages being broadcast instead of the parade in some instances. Authorities said services had been turned off for some users.