Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who daringly interrupted a live TV broadcast to protest her country’s invasion of Ukraine, was briefly detained by Russian authorities for a second time over the weekend.
04.07.2022 - 16:07 / deadline.com
The Czech Film Commission, the body that promotes the Czech Republic to the international world, had its website hacked last week by Russian hackers. Speaking at a roundtable discussion hosted by the Odesa Film Festival at Karlovy Vary’s Industry Days section, Czech Film Commission head Pavlina Zipkova told delegates that its website was recently targeted by Russian hackers after it posted an article on its website highlighting the Czech Republic as being a safe place to shoot.
Zipkova said that the Czech Republic is “ready to help [Ukrainian filmmakers] but a virus from Russia” targeted the site after publication of this article. Hackers infiltrated the website leaving one small sentence saying,“f**k, u ve been hacked!” on a white page. An independent IT company was able to trace it back to a Russian hacking program designed to take down pages that would feature words or sentences that could be linked to pro-Ukraine sentiments.
In the article on the site, it highlighted the Czech Republic’s situation in light of the war in Ukraine, emphasizing that the Czech Republic was a member of the European Union and NATO and is distanced from the Russian federation. It highlighted that the Central European country remained a safe place for international productions to come and shoot projects.
The Czech Republic has a history of supporting and working with Ukrainian filmmakers and many of co-productions that were in motion before the war started, have now stopped. The country has taken in more than 300,000 Ukraine refugees and it’s increasingly known that as Russian president Vladimir Putin continues to invade Ukraine, he will be looking to gain influence across the Eastern bloc.
The Czech Film Commission’s website is back up but
Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who daringly interrupted a live TV broadcast to protest her country’s invasion of Ukraine, was briefly detained by Russian authorities for a second time over the weekend.
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