A volunteer IT army has been sourcing a large amount of power to the Ukrainian leaders, as they have been raising funds through crypto donations. This is being done in order to raise global awareness against their adversary- which has shown its proclivity towards online attacks. The novel digital tactics of Ukraine seem to be an on the fly approach– a response to the Russian invasion that changed the life of Ukrainians overnight. This was mentioned by Alex Bornyakov, the deputy minister of digital transformation of Ukraine.
IT Army Has Been A Major Force Against Russian Online Attacks
The minister stated that they had held on to hopes that the war would not take place until the last moment possible. Even the day before the war erupted, the citizens throughout the country had been involved in their own lives, and planning meetings, actions- similar to regular life. But once the war started, the people in the country realized that they had to act completely differently from how they acted before. This also brought in a host of other bodies for the war, like the IT Army.
More than 300,000 people volunteered for the IT Army, as they wanted to do something for their country. The volunteers then received different tasks and communicated through Telegram, the only platform that provided end-to-end encryption messaging. Alexandra Givens, the President, and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology stated that this was a perfect example of why encryption was necessary. She further added that encryption had been under major attack in the United States of America and around the country for quite some time. But this moment would properly illustrate why encryption was necessary and imminent.
The IT Army has made it possible for outside information to reach Russia as the Kremlin went ahead and put a crackdown on most of the major news sites and a few social media platforms.
