Ukraine minister Mykhailo Fedorov: “Tech is the best solution against tanks”

Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, 31, has leaned on tech giants to boycott Russia, urge hackers to attack and trick Elon Musk into moving satellites for Ukraine’s benefit. And most of it was done from a smartphone.

From his underground lair in a secret location in Kyiv, Ukraine’s youngest cabinet minister hears bombs falling and warning sirens wailing.

But while his friend, the country’s president, is gathering forces for physical warfare, Mykhailo Fedorov and his team are waging a different kind of war against Russia.

Using his weapon of choice – social media – Mr Fedorov has urged CEOs of big companies to sever ties with Moscow. He has also taken the unprecedented step of creating a volunteer “IT Army of Ukraine” to launch cyber attacks against “the enemy.”

His work is hailed as a key element of the war effort, but not all of his campaigns are internationally acclaimed.

At just 31, Mr. Fedorov has shaped his government role around his lifestyle – he lives through and on his mobile phone.

Before the war, his main goal was to create a “government in a smartphone” where 100% of government services are offered online. Now that project is on hold and all muscles are strained for the digital war effort.

He has pressured multinationals to boycott Russia.

Apple, Google, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony, Oracle… no tech giant has not received an official government letter.

Fedorov then posts his letters on social media for the world to see, as well as some of the replies.

It is impossible to say whether this influenced the companies’ actions, but most changed their policy towards Russia in the following days – either stopped selling products there, like Apple, or ceased operations.

PayPal’s announcement on Saturday that it is suspending services in Russia appeared on Fedorov’s Twitter feed before it was reported in the media.

A tweet from Fedorov to Elon Musk shortly after the invasion brought quick results. Within 48 hours, the billionaire tech mogul had adjusted its constellation of Starlink satellites and sent a truckload of internet-enabled terminals to Ukraine.

The service is a potential lifeline for the government if internet and telecom networks are damaged or destroyed, although Musk has since warned that the satellite dishes could become a target for Russian missiles and should be used with caution.

Fedorov has a total of more than half a million followers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram and uses them all to get his message across.

“Every platform is very important for us now and we take every opportunity to attract big companies to this horror that is happening in Ukraine now. We’re trying to bring the truth to the Russians and get them to protest the war,” he told the BBC via email.

He speaks mainly in Ukrainian online, but since the crisis he has switched to English on Twitter, where he makes the most impact.

“Twitter has become an efficient tool we use to counter Russian military aggression. It is our intelligent and peaceful tool to destroy the Russian economy,” he says.

Technology researcher and author Stephanie Hare says she’s not surprised Fedorov is finding success.

“Fedorov is not only Ukraine’s digital minister for transformation, but also 31 years old. He understands,” she says.

“It is not new in conflict, modern or not, to engage in communication, persuasion, propaganda, or information warfare: all sides are doing it and have long done so. However, since social media companies entered the equation in the 2000s, they’ve changed that calculus due to the speed and breadth with which people can spread their messages.”

Fedorov’s spokeswoman told me that his young team constantly had new ideas, which the ministry then tried to implement quickly.

Some have been controversial.

For example, Fedorov is urging cryptocurrency exchanges to freeze the accounts of all Russian citizens — an idea that many, including the CEO of the Binance exchange, say would “slap in the face” to the reason crypto exists.

And the ministry’s launch of an “IT Army of Ukraine” that includes thousands of volunteer hackers from around the world — his Telegram group now has 270,000 members — has caused some unease.

“Tech is the best solution against tanks,” Fedorov told the BBC.

“The IT army of Ukraine is targeting the digital and online resources of Russian and Belarusian business enterprises, banks and state web portals. We stopped the operation of the web portal of the Russian public services, the stock exchange, the websites of Tass, Kommersant, Fontanka and other top media in Russia that financed the Russian army to fight against the Ukrainian people.”

So far, the hacking appears to be mostly low-level cyber vandalism, but Fedorov’s team also specifically calls for attacks on railroad and power grids, which has some in the cybersecurity world concerned.

“I certainly understand the kind of desperation that drives the Ukrainian government to call on people to launch cyberattacks against Russia, but I think it’s really important to be careful in this area,” says the center’s Suzanne Spalding for strategic and international studies.

“As we get caught up in destructive attacks on critical infrastructure conducted by citizens, I think we start encountering the types of fog of war, misattributions and potential cascading impacts that weren’t anticipated. Things can escalate quickly.”

In a press conference on Friday, Viktor Zhora, deputy chairman of the State Service for Special Communications, which works closely with Fedorov’s department, defended the decision to rally hackers against Russia.

He said he welcomes illegal cyberattacks on Russia by all groups, including hacking collective Anonymous, because “the world order changed on February 24” when the invasion began.

“I don’t think appealing to moral principles works because our enemy has no principles.”

Russia sympathizers are also hacking against Ukraine, but at the moment Russia seems to be doing worse. Russia’s crack military hackers don’t seem to have played a major role so far for unclear reasons.

Fedorov and his team are obviously working flat out and in desperation, announcing a new project or an appeal to a technology CEO almost every hour.

A recent project was asking people to buy parts for a virtual rocket to send Putin to Jupiter. Next, they plan to start selling NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Anything to raise money for the military effort.