On 13 April 2024, news website Zmist, an online outlet based in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, was targeted in a cyber attack allegedly orchestrated by Russian sources, Zmist wrote in a post on Telegram. According to the outlet, the website was under attack for at least three days in a row, with readers still encountering difficulties in accessing content on April 15. While the website Zmist.pl.ua remained accessible throughout this period, the page reportedly took more time to open than usual and readers were asked to confirm that they were human due to security concerns. In a comment on the incident provided to the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Ukrainian press freedom group, Zmist’s editor-in-chief Anastasiya Dobryak said that the team at the outlet initially thought that they were dealing with technical issues, however later verifications confirmed that a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack was being carried out by a source in Russia. Dobryak added that she believed the attack was an attempt to “destroy” Zmist as an independent outlet, among others due to its support of Ukrainian soldiers. As of May 8, Zmist’s website is available, however human verification is still needed to access it.