By Aaron Brantly, Associate Professor; Director of the Tech4Humanity Lab, Virginia Tech
Last week I arrived in Kyiv after 48 hours to planes and trains to a rain and snow mix falling on the Kyiv central train station. Men eagerly ran up to the arriving train carriages with flowers in hand to greet wives and girlfriends who had made the journey back to Ukraine. The train was entirely populated by women, children, and older men. The joy of reunion was conditioned by the reality of war. I have been coming to Kyiv for 20 years, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer, then as a research scientist for the United States Army Cyber Institute, and now as an academic from Virginia Tech invited to speak on the laws of war in cyberspace at the Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum at the request of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC). The change in the city is palpable. It is a city both serving as the hub of the national idea of Ukraine, but also one that is clearly in and acutely impacted by the ongoing war.
My first morning in Kyiv came quickly. I was awoken by air raid sirens and in my jet/train-lagged state I pulled on clothes and grabbed my bag and headed down to the hotel bomb shelter. While I was in the shelter Kyiv air defenses went active against approximately 24 incoming missiles. One of those missiles breached the air defense systems and slammed into a residential building a couple kilometers south of where I am staying killing several civilians in an attack that has become all too common. The shelter in the hotel was filled with international diplomats and we checked news and drank coffee while we waited for several hours for their alert to end. Outside Kyiv at the same time, the train of US Ambassador at Large Nathaniel Fick and Director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jen Easterly was halted and waited for the attack to end.
The event which took place in the basement ballroom of the hotel started on time and the remarks by Ukrainian deputy ministers from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Digital Transformation opened the forum. Each spoke about the challenges the country has experienced in cyberspace and expressed repeated gratitude for international partnership and cooperation. These opening comments were followed by US and EU officials further reiterating the importance of the cooperation and the value of learning from the Ukrainian experience.
Ukraine is a strange place now, more than ever. It is a place caught between the hope of a democratic future and a horrific and ever-present ongoing war. It is a state and people that want to cooperate and share lessons learned, but that are acutely aware of their dependence on foreign assistance to continue to fight and remain a sovereign state. My discussions with Ukrainians at the forum, in shops, on the streets, and in cafes has revealed to me a complexity that is often overlooked in most media reports. Ukraine and Ukrainians have a strength of resolve, a hope for the future, but a powerlessness and a fear conditioned by the reality of limited resources, and western partners who exclaim cooperation, but are often slow or unable to provide adequate assistance. For Ukrainians this war is as existential as the American Revolution to our forefathers. It is a fight for freedom and the ability to craft a new society moving on a trajectory towards modernity and democracy.
For most American’s Ukraine is abstract and distant. But most Ukrainians are more like most Americans than is commonly realized. Most of the hopes and dreams Americans wish for daily are very similar to those of Ukrainians. They want a better future for themselves and their children.
The Kyiv International Cyber Forum ended on Thursday, and I began the 50-hour journey home comprised of two trains and three planes. Despite difficult travel, and air raids, I learned about all the various cyber attacks that have been endured and thwarted. I have seen the profound changes in Ukraine’s government to implement policy and secure change in digital spaces since I first met with the NSDC in 2017. I encountered a thriving public-private ecosystem of actors fighting to defend the state in cyberspace. I am coming away impressed by their resilience and resolve to fight what some have termed the first cyber war. But what I am more impressed by are the people themselves. Their grit and determination are unrivaled. But it is their hope. Their shows of affection on the train platform, the discussions about their children’s futures that further solidify in me the worthiness of their cause and the importance of our consistent support.