On March 7, 4:30 PM (Kyiv time), the official website of Ukraine run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, which presents verified information about the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, has become inaccessible as the hosting account has been disabled. The hosting company Hetzner Online GmbH has not provided any explanation on the causes of the website’s unavailability.
The representative of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Federal Republic of Germany has contacted the office of Hetzner Online GmbH three times, both via the company's official email and by phone. The representatives of the company have not been able to provide a comprehensive explanation and have stated that they are not authorized to disclose any information on this issue.
As a result of the hosting account being disabled, part of the website’s content is now lost. The Ministry’s team is working to restore the access to the website and to migrate the recovered data to another hosting provider.
In times of war, we consider such actions to represent a hostile act and we demand an immediate explanation from the company’s management.
By disabling the hosting account, Hetzner Online GmbH has cut off access to a vital platform that hosts verified information for thousands of foreigners from around the world. The website war.ukraine.ua provides verified information concerning all aspects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to a broad international audience. Hosted content includes military reports as well as human stories of Ukrainians defending their country, helping others, showing solidarity and heroism. The platform’s reach has grown steadily and it now has a regular international audience, as the interest in news from Ukraine has grown significantly since the beginning of the war. Since February 24, over 1.8 million unique users visited the website (as of March 7, 2022).