Until recently, his most important plan was to make Ukraine... "a state on a smartphone".
That's what the Minister of Digital Transition and Deputy Prime Minister of the Ukrainian government, Mikhail Fedorov, called the goal of making all government services in his country available online within the next two years, with 20 percent fully automated.
To this end, he even summoned the "mecca of technology", Silicon Valley in California, six months ago, in search of partnerships and new ideas.
Today, however, all this already seems very distant...
Ukraine is fighting a battle for survival against the Russian invaders...
Ukraine is fighting a battle for survival against the Russian invaders. And he, at 31 years old - the youngest member of the Cabinet - is fighting his own, digital battle against Moscow with his team, having turned a bunker in a secret location of besieged Kiev into a headquarters.
Digital "diplomacy"
Under the motto "technology is the best answer to tanks", the young minister has moved heaven and earth via social media to rally the international technological community on Ukraine's side.
As he did in the 2019 presidential election - as Volodymyr Zelensky's digital campaign manager - he is now coordinating the Ukrainian president's relentless online campaign to raise the morale of his compatriots and boost international support against the Russians, making social media a key element of Ukraine's communications strategy.
At the same time, through his Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Telegram accounts, Fedorov is stepping up pressure on Western tech giants - especially the US - to take action against Moscow.
Not coincidentally, he posts his signed letters on social media, also instrumentalizing international public opinion.
Already, after the sweeping Western sanctions against Russia, companies such as Apple, Google, Meta, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Microsoft, Sony and Oracle have suspended the availability of their services and products on the Russian market.
And PayPal's positive response to a request by
Fedorov on Saturday was first announced via the Ukrainian minister's Twitter account.
[BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC][BC]A post shared by Михаил Федоров (@michael.fedorov)
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The "alliance" with Ilon Musk
His most pivotal intervention, however, remains his appeal in a tweet, at the start of the Russian invasion, to Ilon Musk.
"While you are trying to colonize Mars, Russia is trying to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets are successfully landing from space, Russian rockets are hitting Ukrainian civilians!", Fedorov wrote.
His request to Musk was to help his country by providing SpaceX's Starlink satellites so that the defending Ukrainians would not be digitally cut off from the rest of the world.
Musk's response was immediate and practical.
Within 48 hours, he had coordinated SpaceX satellites and sent a truckload of terminals and satellite dishes to Ukraine.
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Donations, cryptocurrencies and... "Putin to Jupiter"
At the same time, again via social media, the young Ukrainian minister is promoting donation campaigns for his country, sharing with posts account numbers to the National Bank of Ukraine to raise money either for humanitarian aid or even to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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In the meantime, he is promoting another crowdfunding campaign, under the slogan "Send Putin to Jupiter".
"Help us send a bloodthirsty dictator far away," reads the digital poster, with Fedorov even claiming in a Twitter post that "everyone wants Putin to die"...
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"Until that happens," he said, "give Ukrainians and the whole world a unique opportunity: send it to Jupiter."
"Donate $2.99 for a rocket. All the money will be used to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure!"
In a later Instagram post, Fedorov replaced the reference "to die" with "to disappear" (according to the English translation).
He celebrated the fact, he said, that "2 million dollars have already been raised."
And he announced that part of the funds will be used to support the Ukrainian army.
Cryptocurrencies, hackers and NATO
Following the explosion in demand for cryptocurrencies in Russia under the weight of Western sanctions, the 31-year-old Digital Transition Minister is also stepping up pressure on major exchanges to block Russian customers.
In the meantime, he has led Kiev's decision to create an "IT army" of volunteer hackers from all corners of the globe to stop cyberattacks against Ukraine's critical infrastructure and digital services, and to launch similar ones against Russian targets.
These even include cyberattacks on Russia's rail and power grids. I certainly understand the kind of desperation that drives the Ukrainian government to invite people to launch cyberattacks against Russia, but I think it's very important to be cautious in this area," Susan Spalding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies tells the BBC.
"If we engage in catastrophic civilian attacks on vital infrastructure," she points out, "we will be faced with the fog of war, misattributions of responsibility and potentially intensifying consequences that were not anticipated."
In this case, he stresses, "the situation could quickly deteriorate."
This, while - as the Zaporizhian-born Fedorov gleefully announced on Twitter - "#Ukraine will be accepted as a Cooperating Party in the #NATO CCDCOE": the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
Source: in.gr
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Times
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Times
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