Sofia Kochmar

“But then the notification mentioned 'street fighting in Kyiv', and I thought, wait, no, that's impossible.”

Sofia Kochmar · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-02

Kochmar explained that the notification's mention of 'street fighting in Kyiv' is what made her question whether the alert was real.

“All our work group chats immediately blew up. Everyone started messaging each other, discussing what was happening. And what I found fascinating was how quickly we turned the whole thing into a joke.”

Sofia Kochmar · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-02

Kochmar described how Ukrainians quickly turned to joking about the incident in their work group chats after the initial concern passed.

“The first thing I saw was the word 'nuclear' and that made me pretty nervous and scared. So my first thought was that something nuclear was actually flying toward us.”

Sofia Kochmar · said date not stated · reported 2026-11-02

A resident of Lviv described her initial alarm upon seeing the word 'nuclear' in a hacked alert-app notification before quickly doubting its authenticity.