Ukrainian Government Considers Evacuating Data Abroad To Prevent It From Being Confiscated By Russian Troops

JAKARTA – The Ukrainian government is preparing for the potential need, to move its data and servers abroad if the Russian invasion force goes deeper into the country, Wednesday, March 9.

Victor Zhora, Deputy Head of the Special Communications Service and State Information Protection of Ukraine, stressed that his department is planning a possibility, which is being considered, that Ukraine wants to be prepared for the threat of Russia confiscation of sensitive government documents.

"We are preparing the ground," Zhora told Reuters. Plan A is to protect IT infrastructure in Ukraine. While deleting it and moving that data to another country is "Plan B or C".

"The move can only happen after the rule changes are approved by Ukrainian lawmakers," Zhora said.

Government officials have sent equipment and supplies to safer areas of Ukraine out of reach of Russian troops, who invaded and have now besieged several towns.

Last month Zhora told Politico that there were plans to move critical data from the capital Kyiv if it was threatened. However, preparations for transferring data abroad are still being considered.

“Ukraine has received offers from various countries to host our data,” Zhora said. But he declined to identify the countries on security grounds. "But a European location would be preferable to us. There are many options. All proposals are very welcome and worth considering," he added.

Zhora gave few details on how such a move could be made. But he said efforts to keep government data out of Russia's reach, which involved physical transportation for servers and removable storage devices or digital migration of data from one service or server to another, would be limited.

According to Zora, if lawmakers agree to lift restrictions on sending Ukrainian data abroad and an IT asset removal protocol is established, it doesn't mean that all or even most of the government's data or network equipment will be sent overseas immediately.

Government agencies must decide on a case-by-case basis whether to continue their operations at home or evacuate them overseas.

What to do in wartime with the heaps of data collected by the government became a topic of international attention after the Taliban's blitzkrieg in Afghanistan last August. The Taliban then took city after city and the data in the fund, as US and other foreign forces withdrew.

The Taliban's conquest of Kabul means that their forces are in a position to inherit sensitive data. For example, payroll information for government employees and Afghan soldiers. This data is what they have the potential to provide clues on how to capture or eliminate domestic opponents.

Similar concerns exist in Ukraine. Russia, which has Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files, can help them if Russia wants to control Ukraine more tightly.

Pavol Jakubec, a historian at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, said Ukraine was not necessarily planning a potential government in exile, as this was usually a last resort.

"Perhaps they want to prevent potential Russian attempts to block their operations, analog and digital," he said.

“In 1940 Norway physically sent most of its Foreign Ministry archives to the north of the country and then finally to England when German troops invaded,” Jakubec said.

According to Jakubec, apart from trying to protect citizens of a country under occupation, Ukrainian officials also want to deny Russian troops the opportunity to possess documents that could be forged by the enemy and used for propaganda purposes.