Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, on Monday said that a hacking group had used the social media website to target prominent Ukrainian military officials, politicians and a journalist, Reuters reported.

In a blog post, Meta claimed that the hacker group “Ghostwriter” had accessed the social media accounts of these targets. The hackers tried to post YouTube videos from the accounts which portrayed that Ukrainian troops had weakened in the face of Russian invasion of the country. One of the videos showed Ukrainian soldiers raising a white flag of surrender, Meta Platforms said.

The company said on Monday that in the last 48 hours, it had removed 40 fake accounts, groups and pages on Facebook and Instagram that were being used to target the Ukrainian officials. These accounts and pages operated from both Russia and Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Meta’s comments came amid media reports which suggest that Russia has launched a widespread cyber attack on Ukraine.

Just a day before Moscow’s military operation on Ukraine began on February 24, several of Ukraine’s bank and government department websites crashed, according to BBC. This was a week after Ukraine and the United States had blamed Russia after 70 of Kyiv’s government websites had crashed.

On Friday, Ukrainian cybersecurity officials had alleged that hackers from neighbouring country Belarus had been targeting the private email addresses of Ukrainian military personnel “and related individuals”, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Meta Platforms said that the social media accounts, which the company had removed, ran an “influence campaign” through a “small number of websites masquerading as independent news outlets”.

These outlets reported on claims that the western countries had betrayed Ukraine and that Ukraine was a failed state, Reuters reported, citing Meta Platforms. The campaign also used platforms like YouTube, Telegram and Russian social media sites Odnoklassniki and VK, according to Reuters.