Ukraine directs executive authorities to form cyber security teams
Ukraine’s prime minister has instructed the heads of all executive authorities to establish cyber security teams, procure software and put it into operation as the government reports intensifying attacks on digital systems.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Sergii Koretskyi, has instructed the heads of all executive authorities to urgently form cyber security teams, procure software and put it into operation. The direction, announced on 23 October, is a government instruction rather than confirmation that every authority has already created a team or deployed new tools.
The measure concerns the country’s public digital services and the institutions responsible for them. It places responsibility with the leaders of executive authorities to organise capacity within their own bodies, rather than describing a single completed national system. The announcement does not identify a procurement timetable, a budget, particular software products or the authorities that may move first.
Instruction focuses on readiness across public bodies
The immediate requirements are to build teams, obtain software and bring that software into use. Those are separate tasks. Creating a team does not by itself demonstrate that it has the necessary staff or skills, while buying software does not show that it has been installed, tested or integrated with an authority’s existing systems.
Koretskyi said key digital bodies were already able to counter attacks using artificial intelligence. He said he expected the same level of readiness from every state institution and agency. The statement did not name those bodies or set out a public standard by which their readiness, or that of other authorities, will be assessed.
The wording also leaves open practical questions that will matter during implementation. Authorities may need to assign staff, establish responsibilities for monitoring and response, and decide how any new tools will work with their existing services. None of those arrangements was detailed in the announcement, and no completion date was given.
Government cites attacks on digital infrastructure
The prime minister linked the instruction to what he described as mounting pressure on Ukraine’s digital infrastructure. He said that around ten data centres in Kyiv had been damaged during September. That figure is the government’s account of the damage; the announcement did not provide a list of sites or a technical assessment of the effects on public services.
Koretskyi also said cyberattacks were becoming more intense and that artificial intelligence was increasingly being used by the enemy. He identified state information systems and Ukrainian businesses as major targets. These are the prime minister’s characterisation of the threat, not a public account of every incident or an attribution independently established in the announcement.
Digital systems can be central to the delivery of public services, so a disruption can affect more than the organisation directly targeted. The government’s response is therefore aimed at improving readiness within the authorities that operate those services. It does not establish that an attack is under way at every authority, or that the new teams will replace existing technical staff and procedures.
Implementation remains the next test
The announcement marks a nationwide administrative direction, but its practical effect will depend on what follows inside individual authorities. The government has not said how many teams will be formed, how they will be resourced, whether there will be shared guidance or how progress will be reported.
For now, the confirmed development is the instruction itself: leaders of executive authorities have been told to establish cyber security teams and put procured software into service. Claims that all bodies have completed those steps, or that the measure has already prevented attacks, would go beyond the information made public on 23 October.
