Raphael Satter and James Pearson

LONDON, (Reuters) – Internet connectivity has been severely affected in Ukraine by the Russian invasion. This is especially true in southern and eastern Ukraine where there has been the most fighting, NetBlocks, an internet blockage observational, said Saturday.

Russian forces captured Melitopol, a city in the southeast of Ukraine, on Saturday. This was reported by Russia’s Interfax news agency. Moscow also launched coordinated missile and artillery attacks on multiple cities including Kyiv.

NetBlocks stated that the connectivity of GigaTrans Ukraine, Ukraine’s major internet provider, fell to less than 20%. However, it returned to its normal levels by Friday morning.

“Currently, we observe national connectivity at 87% above ordinary levels,” Alp Toker (director of NetBlocks) told Reuters.

“While there is no nation-scale blackout, little is being heard from the worst affected regions, and for others there’s an ever-present fear that connectivity could worsen at any moment, cutting off friends and family,” Toker said.

According to him, disruptions in Ukraine’s telecom networks may affect the civilian defense groups who have been mobilizing to defend cities.

Officials from Ukraine released additional information regarding an alleged Belarusian cyberespionage operation that they claimed was targeting Kyiv forces’ personal email accounts.

Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team stated in a Facebook post (NASDAQ:) that the hackers weren’t just targeting Ukrainians. They also targeted Poles and Russians.

Emails to the Belarusian Embassy in London weren’t returned.