'This is a revolution': Inside Ukraine’s plans to seed 7,000+ techies across its military
Ukraine is already a trailblazer when it comes to using tech in its war against Russia. Now, deputy minister Oksana Ferchuk says it's ready to ramp up its digital profile
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, announced on Monday a significant step forward in how the country’s military will tap technology in its war with Russia. More than 7,000 “digital officers” – defence technologists – will be deployed to work “across all commands and branches,” Fedorov said in a short note on LinkedIn.
Fedorov’s post outlined the five areas these digital officers will oversee. They will implement systems within units, collect and provide feedback on how tech is being used, identify operational needs and work as clients and solution architects to meet those needs (which means working with the tech providers to buy and tailor solutions), and “foster an IT culture within the armed forces.”
The plan is a progression of the country’s Chief Digital Transformation Officer (CDTO) programme, which has seen tech specialists deployed across national and local government departments and community groups.
Ukraine’s military has become a global beacon for how tech like autonomous drones can change the game and help smaller groups of soldiers gain an advantage over bigger ones on the battlefield.
But a lot of that, especially in its earlier incarnations, emerged out of organic necessity, combined with the population’s technological and entrepreneurial nous, rather than concerted planning from the top. Seeding digital officers across the military could help Ukraine scale that tech advantage to all battalions.
“This new structure will significantly accelerate [the] army’s digitalisation,” Fedorov said.
Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal described the officers as “an IT vertical for the Armed Forces” who would “cultivate a digital culture” in every unit. “Such people are already working on the ground, and we will unite them into a single network,” he added.
Fitting into the bigger picture
Notably, these plans have been in the works for months already. Fedorov’s description of the set-up earlier this year, with deployments to begin “at the battalion level,” echoes what Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Defence for Digitalisation, Oksana Ferchuk, told Resilience Media in September.
In an interview at IT Arena in Lviv that month, Ferchuk spelled out plans to embed “one digital officer [per] battalion.” Their job, she explained, would be to ensure technology rollouts match frontline needs.
“We have thousands of IT-related personnel already in the Armed Forces, but they are occupying other, different positions,” Ferchuk said. “They are soldiers, not IT specialists, but they perform an IT role. We would like to make this institutional change — to have those positions officially and to have skilled people in such positions.”
Once deployed, Ferchuk added, the digital officers will streamline the flow of new systems to the battlefield.
One key area where this will make a difference is in military procurement, which will shift from “buy, deliver, and forget” to continuous updates as conditions evolve. “We would like from them professional, fast, agile feedback — what is working, what is not,” Ferchuk said, “because the systems we are launching are now in constant development.”
By blending battlefield insights with faster product cycles, cloud-based tools, and bring-your-own-device policies, the country aims to make the military more flexible and responsive.
Another core component of the plan is more agile connectivity. One of the first things Russia did when invading Ukraine was to take down parts of its communications network infrastructure. As a result, Ukraine turned to satellite, using a variety of providers, but primarily Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet service. This dependence has sparked concerns, not least because SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has previously threatened to withdraw Starlink provisions.
To minimise disruption and improve resilience, Ukraine has now adopted a four-layer connectivity strategy that blends satellite internet (including Starlink), fixed-line, radio spectrum, and Wi-Fi.
“We have to be very pragmatic, because connectivity is very important in the successful operations and successful performance of tasks on the battlefield,” Ferchuk said. “This is why we are not relying on any type of technology.” However, balancing four different kinds of services and the various suppliers that feed into them is another argument for having digital officers at the battalion level to manage that.
The digital officers will likely also play a role in how military units tap DOT-Chain Defence, a digital marketplace that Ukraine has set up for procuring military equipment. Launched in July, the platform allows individual brigades to order approved equipment directly from suppliers. According to Ferchuk, the system cut the average delivery time for drones from “several months” to “around 10 days” while also easing access to specific weaponry requirements.
“This is a revolution,” she said.
Alongside DOT-Chain Defence, Ukraine has embedded a diverse suite of software across the military. In just the last year, the government has launched the Army+ platform to digitise services for soldiers; Impulse, a military personnel accounting system to access real-time information on service members; and Reserve+, an app to streamline conscript registration.
Meanwhile, on the frontline, officials recently ordered a full rollout of the DELTA battlefield management system, which adapts rapidly to changing conditions. All these tools are designed to replace slow and inefficient processes with agile software.
“We are not only changing technology on the battlefield,” Ferchuk said. “We are also changing the processes within the Army… It doesn’t matter if it’s military-related technology or overall management technology systems — they need to be adjusted every month. Literally, every month.”
Deploying digital officers across the military will add fresh recruits to the agile cause. Fedorov said this week that scaling the CDTO model throughout the military will “give Ukraine an additional edge in technological warfare.”
Ferchuk draws a parallel with the influx of digital-native civilians into the Armed Forces. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, around 250,000 people served in the Ukrainian military. By the summer, the country had an estimated 1 million soldiers. The rapid mobilisation swept commercial technology straight into the military.
“They are basically reflecting how civil society in Ukraine is consuming and using digital culture. And Ukraine is quite progressive in that way, so the army is also quite progressive.” The digital officers, she hopes, will speed up the progression.
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