By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON, (Reuters) – A Russian newspaper accused hackers of creating fake news on their website following a brief report that claimed nearly 10,000 Russian soldiers were killed in Ukraine.

It was the second incident in less than a week that shook loose the war narrative tightly controlled by the Kremlin through Russian media.

A Komsomolskaya Pravda online article, which can still be accessed via a webarchive tool, refers to the Russian defense ministry saying that 9,861 Russian soldiers were killed and 16,153 injured in the special military operation Moscow has launched in Ukraine.

These figures had been removed in a Tuesday version of that same article.

The advisory instead stated: “On March 21, Access to the Administrator Interface was Hacked on the Komsomolskaya Pravda Website and a Fake Insert was Made in This Publication About the Situation Around the Special Operation in Ukraine.” It was removed immediately.

Russia has yet to update its casualty statistics since March 2, when it stated that 498 soldiers had been killed and 1,597 were wounded. It has been met with stiff resistance by both the army of Ukraine and its volunteer defense forces since then.

Dmitry Peskov (Kremlin spokesperson) told reporters that he was not able to comment on the Komsomolskaya Pravda situation, but it was something for the newspaper. Peskov said that he did not have any information about casualty numbers.

Alexander Gamov was a Kremlin reporter for the paper. He said that the website of the newspaper had been compromised and false information appeared for several minutes.

Mykhailo Podolyak was the Ukrainian president’s adviser and drew our attention earlier to the online newspaper articles as well as the alleged 9,861 Russian deaths.

This is just the start of the realization of their national disaster. Telegram: “Because in the real world, there are nearly twice as many Russians who have been killed,” Podolyak stated.

None of these purported casualty claims could be independently verified.

Komsomsolskya Pravda, one of the Russian media who have faithfully followed President Vladimir Putin’s line that Moscow seeks a special operation to demilitarize and “denazify Ukraine” – an argument rejected both by Ukraine and Western countries as false pretexts to invade a democracy.

An editor from Channel One state TV news shouted anti-war slogans live and held a poster with the words “NO WAR” during an evening news program last week. Marina Ovsyannikova was fined by a court for protesting against the Kremlin as “hooliganism” and she received a fine of 30,000 Russian rubles ($280).