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When the Russian military invaded Ukraine in a blitzkrieg of heavy weaponry, pro-Ukraine hacktivists looking to take down www.mil.ru met with something unexpected: a 418 error in which a server declares it cannot complete your request because it is a teapot.

The teapot error is a decades-old April Fools’ joke occasionally repurposed to tell would-be hackers that their efforts have been foreseen and blocked. “It’s almost like giving a middle finger,” Amit Serper, the director of security research at Akamai, told BuzzFeed News. Akamai, like its competitor Cloudflare, runs much of the plumbing that supports the internet.

A few days later, the teapot error vanished, and mil.ru and websites of prominent Russian banks such as Gazprombank went dark for most internet users outside Russia. The government had geofenced key websites — meaning those outside the country couldn’t access these sites, and so couldn’t hack them.

“I assume the Russians realized that pretty much whatever they are trying to do to everyone else, the same thing can be done to them,” Serper said. “By geofencing you are making it impossible for someone outside Russia to reach all those targets.”

In other words, Russia had expected retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine and had already preempted the cyberattacks it suspected were coming — and come they did.

A day after the invasion began, Reuters reported that a prominent Ukrainian entrepreneur was working closely with his government to assemble a phalanx of volunteers for cyber offense and cyber defense. While the offense would

This weekend, Russia’s military held live-fire tank exercises with 1,500 soldiers in those areas and others nearby. The Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, intercepted a Ukrainian navy vessel in the Sea of ​​Azov that it claimed was carrying out a “provocation.” And Putin, the Kremlin, and the country’s state-run media pumped out more bellicose rhetoric.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters this week that Putin hasn’t made a decision as to whether he will launch another large-scale invasion of Ukraine. But US intelligence and military analysts warn that he has plenty of Russian forces in place if he should decide to do so.

“There isn’t any indication that Russia is moving forces away from Ukraine, but there is evidence that Russia is continuing to send more ground forces near the border,” Rob Lee, a Russian military expert and PhD candidate at the King’s College London War Studies Department, told BuzzFeed News. “I would expect this means Russia will retain an enhanced military posture near Ukraine for the foreseeable future … even if they don’t escalate in Ukraine.”

Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst focused on Russia and Belarus, analyzed the Maxar Technologies images for BuzzFeed News. He said that Russia had created a new regiment within its 3rd Motor Rifle Division and that group likely accounted for much of the increase of troops and equipment in Soloti seen in the satellite images between Sept. 7 and Dec. 5. That was two days before President Joe Biden’s call

The devastation Russia’s war has wrought is not lost on Vitaliy.

“But we do our job because it’s our job and our duty,” he said, referring to the Hippocratic oath by which medical professionals abide. “And, of course, after they recover we can exchange them. So I tell myself that this can help to get Ukrainian soldiers back.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have taken prisoners of war since Putin’s invasion began 12 days ago. The Ukrainian side has captured at least 245 Russian troops, according to a website affiliated with the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

Kyiv has also posted an open call to the mothers of captured Russian soldiers to come retrieve them and take them home. According to the Ukraine Ministry of Defense Facebook page, Russian prisoners of war will be released to their mothers if the women personally travel to Kyiv to meet their sons in person.

“We, Ukrainian people, in contrast to Putin’s fascists, do not make war with mothers and their captured sons,” the ministry said.

But Ukraine has also published several ghastly videos of captured Russian troops that experts in international humanitarian law said might violate the Geneva Conventions.

In one video, a Russian soldier with tape wrapped around his head to cover his eyes is forced to call his parents to tell them he had been captured. “Nobody knows anything. They just ordered us to invade Ukraine,” he tells them.

Another video shows two heavily wounded Russian servicemen