COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A cyberattack has temporarily taken down public and private websites in Norway for the past 24 hours, Norwegian authorities said Wednesday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said that to his knowledge the attack “did not cause any significant damage”.

The distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack targeted a secure national data network, forcing the temporary suspension of online services for several hours, the Norwegian National Security Authority said.

A pro-Russian criminal group appears to be behind the attacks, NSM chief Sofie Nystrøm said. She added that the attacks “give the impression that we are part of the current political situation in Europe”.

Norwegian media reported that the country’s ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday over a complaint about the blocking of Russian supplies from transiting through Norway to a Russian coal mining colony in the Arctic. .

The settlement of Barentsburg is in the Svalbard archipelago, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of the Norwegian mainland. The European Union has imposed sanctions on several Russian products due to the war in Ukraine. Norway is not a member of the EU but reflects its line on most issues. Under a 1920 treaty, Norway has sovereignty over the Svalbard archipelago, but other signatory countries have the right to exploit its natural resources.

Wednesday’s cyberattack on Norway came two days after a similar attack temporarily took down public and private websites in Lithuania, a pro-Moscow hacker group claiming responsibility.

The incident came a week after Russian officials threatened to retaliate because Lithuania restricted the EU-sanctioned transit of steel and ferrous metals through its territory to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.