Considerations for a Post-War Ukrainian National Cybersecurity Strategy

More than three years of war have yielded profound and actionable cybersecurity strategy insight for Ukraine. With the Russian cyber offensive largely disappointing in terms of scale and effectiveness, the enduring lesson for cybersecurity strategists in Ukraine and around the world is that cybersecurity assumptions with regard to cyber war must be revisited. Although the conflict remains ongoing, Ukraine has already begun to think about post-war recovery and reconstruction, an exercise that will include revisiting national security strategy thinking, to include the cyber domain. This article evaluates the impact of the cyber war in Ukraine and what that means for the country’s next national cyber security strategy. This article finds that Ukraine should consider three focal points in its next cyber security strategy: (1) the securitisation and prioritisation of the cyber domain relative to the rest of its security strategy, (2) how to balance foreign partnerships with Russia’s adversaries to maximise security without provoking its principal adversary, and (3) permitting itself to include the possibility of offensive cyber operations, even if Ukraine chooses not to use that alternative.