Kommersant FM broadcast the news in the afternoon, but it was suddenly interrupted by the Ukrainian military anthem. The channel was immediately taken off the air. Editor-in-chief of Kommersant FM, Alexey Vorobyov, said: “We were really hacked. Technical specialists are now working to determine the origin of this attack.”
The radio station is owned by 68-year-old Russian businessman and oligarch Alisher Usmanov. The European Union imposed sanctions on Usmanov after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, imposing a travel ban across the EU and freezing all of his assets.
Usmanov, who was a shareholder of the English football team Arsenal from 2017 to 2018, is also the fifth richest person in Russia and is among the richest 100 persons in the world with an estimated wealth of 17 billion euros. The hacking of his radio station is the latest in a series of Ukrainian stunts against Russian media.