Stronger together? EU Support for Ukrainian Local Authorities Facing Cyber Attacks (2022-2023)

Abstract

This study attempts to explore the extent to which EU support during the decentralisation process in Ukraine facilitates local authorities’ digitalisation and strengthens their resilience against cyber attacks. The Ukrainian cyber attack cases are becoming more frequent in 2022 and 2023 in terms of war, especially on the websites of local authorities. The article demonstrates that decentralisation with the support of the EU-funded U-LEAD assistance programme provides an opportunity to bring state services closer to citizens and, accordingly, increase the efficiency of their provision. Decentralisation and digitalisation go hand in hand in the process of implementation in Ukraine. The digitalisation in this direction of local administrations becomes a tool for achieving this goal because it allows local administrations to offer more of their services in a digital format, which ensures the resilience of the development of local authorities. At the same time, the local authorities are less protected against cyber attacks, especially during the war. The article employs a semi-structured interview method to analyse data, revealing that representatives from local authorities participate in various training courses to enhance cybersecurity skills. However, the challenges vary and include issues such as lack of personnel, lack of funding, complex application procedures, lack of coordination, and technical capacity limitations. Indeed, Ukraine is still in the process of improving its own model of cyber defence for local authorities and the country as a whole in terms of countering Russian aggression, using among others practices of NATO and EU countries in the specified field.