From TRMS 2022 03 30
Before the war, Ukraine had a bureaucratic agency called the Ministry of Digital Transformation. It supported a government-run app that helped people do their business with the government, such things as paying traffic fines and such. At the start of the war, additional functions were added such as air raid alerts and all-clear notifications, As the war has progressed, more stuff has been added. People can report Russian troop positions, evidence of war crimes, make appointments to donate blood. It is now an essential element of the defense effort. Because the DIA app had robust safeguards built in from the beginning it has proven to be a well-secured place for the gathering of OSINT (Open Source Intelligence).
Everyone overestimated the capabilities of the Russian cyber-offense. Ukraine has been able to defend itself well from that and even go on the cyber-offensive itself. They had some good minds from the West helping them as the threat of war grew and now the best minds are helping as well. Furthermore, the Russians made the mistake of not attacking internet infrastructure initially because they thought they would quickly be using it themselves. That gave Ukraine time to harden their capabilities against future attacks.
The MDT was key is getting Elon Musk to provide Starlink terminals so internet access was available despite loss of infrastructure. It has also been a channel for funding from the cryptocurrency world that has been very beneficial for the purchase of needed weapons and supplies.
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