“This decision was made primarily to protect the life and health of our people, as lately we have recorded more and more cases of using this service not only for illegal purposes or for information and psychological warfare, but also for the distribution of malicious programs to which are used to deliver real strikes against our people and communities and reveal the location of critical civilian and military infrastructure,” the ministry said in a statement.

The agency suggested that citizens of the DPR temporarily switch to other, "more trusted services" that "are not yet used by the enemy as part of the military infrastructure."

Also on June 3, the LPR authorities blocked access to Viber.