Ukrainian defense forces, members of parliament, and advisors are discussing the creation of a separate cyber forces branch within its military.
While Kyiv established an incident response center to counter cyberattacks on critical military infrastructure earlier this month, the planned cyber forces arm will have a wider array of responsibilities.
It “will allow to significantly strengthen the capabilities of the Ukrainian military, ensure effective planning and implementation of a full range of tasks in cyberspace, which, on a level with land, sea, air and space, is recognized as a separate operational domain,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.
In a meeting headed by Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Lieutenant General Anatoliy Barhylevych, participants discussed the main provisions, tasks, and functions of the future cyber forces branch.
They also reviewed the cyberspace operations of other leading countries and the experience of their own defense forces since Moscow’s 2022 invasion, where Russian-linked groups infiltrated Ukrainian military officials’ social media accounts and stole critical data on government websites.
Previously, NATO extended assistance to Ukraine on cyber defense and security, and the US has contributed $82 million in cyber and digital assistance since February 2022.