In the US, president Biden and major manufacturers have been investing billions of dollars in ramping up the spread of charging stations across the country. Russia has taken to EV cars in a big way too, and its most popular EV models include the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model X.

However, Russian EV owners were recently met with a rather rude awakening on the busy M-11 Route that connects Moscow and St. Petersburg when all the EV chargers along that road were shut down and started displaying rather rude messages about their president, Vladimir Putin. It turns out that the company responsible for manufacturing some of the main components of said chargers is based in Ukraine, and they're not too pleased with Putin at the moment.

According to Russian energy company Rossetti, the chargers were purchased and installed in 2020. The seller, LLC Gzhelprom had purchased many of the main components for the chargers from a Ukrainian company called AutoEnterprise. When AutoEnterprise built the display and control units it left a back door open that allows for hidden internet access.

Rossetti has confirmed they have been hacked and AutoEnterprise is boasting about it on Facebook. The company programmed the chargers to display messages like "Glory to Ukraine" and our favorite "Putin is a dickhead."

The hack comes at a time where most major social media companies, banks and other industries are shutting down or restricting Russian access to their online services. On the other side of the border, Elon Musk has made Tesla's Supercharger network free to use. Neither the Ukraine or Russia have massive fleets of EV vehicles, but every little bit helps. International hacking organizations such as Anonymous have also stated their intent to disrupt Russian infrastructure. All we know is that if Ukrainians can't have freedom, then Russians, at the very least, don't deserve to charge their EVs.