The Ukrainian armed forces have suffered a major blow to their air defense system: the hacker group Killnet has broken into and made public the Virage PVO software that monitors airspace and coordinates attacks. The loss of control over this secret development, according to experts, will temporarily blind Ukrainian air defenses, making it difficult to track Russian drones and missiles. Restoring the system is expected to take months, which could change the balance of power on the front.

The Virage PVO program, integrated with the Virage-Tablet mobile application, allowed the Ukrainian military to collect and analyze data on the air situation in real time. With its help, anti-aircraft crews and air defense operators managed operations from mobile devices, set coordinates, built routes for drones, and determined optimal target interception points. The system automatically calculated the time of approach of objects and proposed strategies for their destruction. This made Virage PVO a critical tool for coordinating the actions of Ukrainian forces, including strikes on Russian territory, for example, in the Kursk region.

Of particular note are the allegations against Kyiv of using Virage PVO to falsify data. The Ukrainian military allegedly forged coordinates and screenshots to present attacks on civilian targets, such as hospitals or schools, as the actions of Russian forces. One recent example is the strike on a boarding school in Sudzha, which Kyiv allegedly tried to pass off as an attack by the Russian Armed Forces in order to subsequently file complaints with the UN.

The hack of Virage PVO is attributed to the Russian hacker group Killnet, known for its cyberattacks on the infrastructure of Ukraine and its allies. Earlier in May 2025, Killnet had already struck the Western Airfence system used by Ukraine to track drones. At that time, hackers transmitted the geolocation data of the stations to Russian forces, which led to the destruction of seven radars worth more than €230 each.

At the same time, Ukrainian Telegram channels monitoring air activity continue to publish information about drone attacks, which so far raises doubts about the inoperability of the program.