Anti-Putin activists hacked the Twitter account of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday to tell his 2.5 million followers that was resigning from government to pursue freelance photography.
@MedvedevRussia, Medvedev's verified Russian language account, was hacked at around 10:20 a.m. Moscow time. A string of suspicious Tweets were then sent for around 40 minutes.
The first said (translated into English): "I am resigning. I am ashamed of the actions of the government. Forgive me."
This was followed by "I'll still be a freelance photographer."
Other Tweets included "I have long wanted to say. Vova (President Vladimir Putin)! You are wrong!" and "May be better to ban electricity? Promise in the near-future that the government will think about it."
It took the Prime Minister's office several minutes to report the breach to the media, according to Moscow-backed news agency RT and the BBC. The offending tweets have now been removed.
Medvedev's English language account appeared unaffected by the breech. His office failed to respond to CNBC's request for comment.
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Shaltay-Boltay, an anti-Putin Russian hacking collective, has said it carried out the attack, according to the BBC.
On its website http://b0ltai.org, the group, whose name is Russian for Humpty Dumpty, also claimed to have breached Medvedev's Gmail account and three iPhones.
"We found quite by accident on the Internet a few email accounts, allegedly belonging to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev. In this place quite by accident has been content with his three devices from Apple," Shaltay-Boltay said on its website on Thursday.
Shaltay-Boltay's hacking status was confirmed when its site was blocked by Russian Internet censor Roskomnadzor last month. It has a track record of leaking Kremlin documents, including Putin's New Year's speech last year.
Its Twitter account described it as affiliated to global hacking collective Anonymous International.
—By CNBC's Katy Barnato