LAS VEGAS – Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Digital Transformation Mykahilo Federov provided significant context to this week’s AWS re:Invent 2022 show, speaking first hand on how the cloud giant played a key role in safeguarding his country’s digital assets and continuity in the face of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“This is the most technologically advanced war in human history,” Federov said during a press conference. “Everyday we see how technology can kill but we also see how technology can help.”

Federov said that Amazon Web Services (AWS) stepped in quickly once Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, providing critical infrastructure and platforms that allowed the country to safeguard and back up digital information. This included state data bases and registries.

“This is core for operation of the economy, of the tech systems, banks, and government overall,” Federov added.

Liam Maxwell, director of digital government transformation at AWS, said the Ukrainian government just days before the Feb. 24 invasion made a bold decision to allow for government and private sector data to be stored in the cloud. On the day of the invasion, AWS met with Ukrainian government officials on those plans, which quickly involved the delivery of three AWS Snowball ruggedized compute and storage devices into the country to help secure, store, and transfer data to the cloud.

“They became the first part in preserving Ukraine’s data,” Maxwell said.

AWS launched its Snow products in 2015, as basically the physical representation of the company’s cloud offering. The first product was Snowball, a 50-pound ruggedized box that held multiple-terabytes of data. It has since added larger and smaller iterations to the lineup.

Federov demurred from providing the exact amount of devices his country is currently relying on, noting through an interpreter that “it’s better not to disclose the exact quantity.” He did add that AWS did supply the devices within 48 hours.

These devices are critical to Ukraine as it deals with Russian attacks on its critical infrastructure and power grids. Federov explained that Russia has resorted to attacking Ukraine’s power grid after it was unable to defeat its digital infrastructure through bombings or cyberattacks.

“So what they are doing now is just making terrorism against” the people and “ruining our energy infrastructure,” Federov said. He added that the biggest impact from these attacks has been in maintaining power to mobile telecom cell sites, though the government has also found success in using satellite-linked communication devices.

Maxwell was cagey in responding to a direct question regarding any increase in Russia-based cyberattacks against AWS in light of its work with the Ukraine government, only stating that “we’ve been able to protect ourselves.”

Ukraine’s ability to withstand attacks on its digital ecosystem has been so successful that Federov touted plans to soon launch new services through the government’s Diia mobile app platform. This includes digital mortgage services and monetary applications.

Federov also expressed interest in some of the new platforms AWS announced at the event, including its Supply Chain product. That platform provides a unified data lake and machine learning (ML) to broadly manage an organization’s supply chain.

More promptly, Federov and Maxwell signed a new agreement on stage to further boost AWS’ work with Ukraine and to set up training programs for thousands of Ukrainians. “By using AWS products they will be able to find new jobs and enter the IT market,” Federov explained.

Photo: Liam Maxwell, director of digital government transformation at Amazon Web Services (R); and Mykahilo Federov, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minster for Digital Transformation (L).