Despite the ongoing stoppage of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in that country’s defense against Russia’s invasion, the U.S. government continues to support Ukraine’s cybersecurity capabilities, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said on Thursday.
The U.S. government’s efforts to assist Ukraine on cybersecurity matters continue, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said during a discussion of Ukraine’s cyber defense.
The U.S. had been providing military equipment to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, but that aid ran out in late 2023 after House Republicans refused to consider a new assistance package by tying further support to tougher measures limiting immigration into the U.S.
In the two years since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has done “remarkably well” withstanding the military onslaught given the equipment that has been supplied so far, and given the vastly larger Russian economy, population, and military, Easterly said during the event hosted by the German Marshall Fund.
“Now from a cyber perspective, nothing will change what we are doing collaboratively to continue to support them, which is through an interagency agreement that is funded by [the Department of] State that will continue to be funded,” she said. “And so, we will continue to provide equipment, training, intelligence, support across the board, and we will do that with our other international partners.”
International and private sector partners are working together on cyber situational awareness around Ukraine, Easterly said.
“That’s another great new story here, the global collaboration, and hand-in-hand with industry, so that we all understand the threat picture so together, we can reduce the risk,” she said. “But I have no concerns about Ukrainian cyber defenders’ continuing ability to defend their critical infrastructure.”
Last week, Easterly and Nathaniel Fick, U.S. Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy, were in Kyiv for a day to participate in an international forum to discuss cyber warfare. In Kyiv, the U.S. officials met with Ukrainian government and private sector officials on continued U.S. support and their needs for cyber capacity.
Easterly said that they met with CISA’s partner, the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine, with which it has been working for years and signed a cooperative agreement in the summer of 2022 for the “full range” of cybersecurity support and intelligence sharing.
“So, it is about cybersecurity, it is about the defense of critical infrastructure,” she said.
Ukraine has suffered a stream of cyber and kinetic attacks from Russia yet has been resilient, holding up under disruptions and recovering quickly, and then continuing to provide services to its people.
The “power of resilience” is “human resilience, which is something that I think America needs,” she said.