Website created by Polish hackers penetrates Russia's wall of censorship

A website developed by Polish programmers allows anyone anywhere in the world to message cellphones and email addresses of random Russian individuals and companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The aim of the website, 1920.in, created by programmers based in Poland, is to "break through (Russian President Vladimir – PAP) Putin's digital wall of censorship and make sure that Russian people were not totally cut off from the world and the reality of what Russia is doing in Ukraine," a spokesman for the group has said.

The new website allows people around the world to circumvent Russia's propaganda machine by sending individual messages about the war in Ukraine to random people in Russia.

A spokesman for the group of Poland-based hackers known as Squad303 - which takes its name from the famed Polish squadron in Britain's RAF that played a key role in the fight against Nazi Germany - likened the effort to such Cold War-era projects as Radio Free Europe, which broadcast radio programmes in several languages across the Iron Curtain.

Up to now, nearly seven million text messages and two million emails have been sent using the website since it was created a week ago, said the spokesman.

Sunday marks day eighteen of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24.