An attack came, but not as expected.

Some media outlets in western countries, mostly citing secret service sources, had expected the Russian troops massed around Ukraine to strike on Wednesday or on Wednesday night.

That didn't happen.

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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According to the authorities, the country experienced the worst cyber attacks on Ukraine to date.

The areas of defense and finance were affected: starting on Tuesday afternoon, the websites of the Ministry of Defense and two portals on military topics were out of action.

Other attacks were aimed at the country's two largest banks, Privatbank and Oschchadbank.

Apparently they were so-called DDoS attacks, in which the servers are paralyzed by a flood of messages.

"The perpetrators apparently knew that our website is protected against classic DDoS attacks," said the Ministry of Defense, "so they looked for sensitive areas in the code of the website themselves.

Unfortunately, we note that they succeeded.

However, "partners from the United States" immediately offered their advice and assistance, in line with a November deal on cyber defense cooperation.

The ministry "routed all traffic to the site through an additional server located in America."

At the banks, payment transactions and applications were affected.

The institutes soon announced that they had the consequences under control, but warned of further attacks.

The State Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security assured that bank customers' deposits are safe.

"Perhaps the aggressor (a common term for Russia) has resorted to the tactic of small inconveniences because, all in all, his aggressive plans are not working."

OSCE loses staff

As the warnings of a Russian attack became more and more urgent over the weekend and the evacuation of some Western embassies accelerated, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj had declared a "Day of Unity" for Wednesday as an antidote to the panic.

Anyone who entered Ukraine on that day received a souvenir from border guards at passport control, a flyer with a motif of ripe ears of grain and the words: "We are strong when we are united!" National flags were hoisted and the national anthem sung ("Ukraine is not dead yet").

According to the government, “against the background of the escalation by Russia”, the past few weeks have shown an unprecedented unity of the nation and an unprecedented solidarity of the international community.

"February 16 is the day of free, European, courageous Ukrainians, not the day of fear." Violent riots like in 2014, when "demonstrators" in the eastern and southern regions of the country with reinforcements from Russia - partially successful – tried to storm town halls, the authorities wanted to avoid at all costs.

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyj issued a warning on Monday: "If such a Girkin tries to seize administrative buildings, he will be shot by our special forces without warning." Igor Girkin,

apparently an officer in the Russian military intelligence service GRU, has been one of the leaders of Russian and pro-Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

He was charged in the Netherlands with involvement in the downing of the Malaysian Boeing (flight MH17) that killed 298 people.

Meanwhile, the OSCE Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine is experiencing a painful reduction in its 42-nation staff.

Of the approximately 680 observers, who are primarily monitoring the peace process in eastern Ukraine, Americans, British, Canadians and Dutch, among others, were withdrawn “for security reasons” – around 132 people alone.

The OSCE members must decide on the extension of the mission and its budget by March 31.

The obstruction of the mission, which documents all violations of the ceasefire in force, mainly by the fighters, less often by the soldiers of Ukraine, has increased in recent months.