Ukraine’s tech industry still stands strong

The ‘keep-going’ approach

The country’s technology companies have put much effort into making their operations resilient. For example, all employees of software developer Redwerk now work remotely, some in Ukraine and some abroad, after the company closed its offices in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia near the frontline in the country’s east.

Some of the ways Redwerk helps its staff are common elsewhere, such as therapy, gym memberships and massages to support their mental health. But it also provides staff working from home in Ukraine – mostly in the west or in the countryside, which is relatively safe – with large power banks to cope with power cuts caused by Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. Last winter, some wore many layers of clothes when they couldn’t heat their homes. The company provides some employees with spaces in co-working offices with back-up generators and access to bomb shelters, as well as providing medical training.

“This is not normal, this should not be happening in the 21st century,” says chief executive and founder Konstantin Klyagin.

In September 2022, Klyagin told Computer Weekly how he heard about the invasion while travelling home from a holiday, causing him to divert to his former home in Berlin. He is currently running the company from Portugal.

“I don’t think there are any benefits to the war,” he says now. “It’s always suffering and a lot of pain and grief.” It has pushed the country into developing military technology “not because we want to, because we have to”.

However, Klyagin thinks the war has motivated Ukrainian technology companies to demonstrate they are competitive and reliable, given potential wariness of engaging with suppliers based in a war zone. When potential customers ask about this, he points to the business continuity measures the company takes to support its staff in Ukraine, as well as the fact that many employees are based in North America and elsewhere in Europe, including headquarters staff in Estonia.

He adds that existing customers do not need much convincing. Redwerk surveyed them to ask if they saw risks in working with the company’s Ukraine-based staff: “They said no, because from their experience working with us, they didn’t have any interruptions in service,” Klyagin says.

He adds that this keep-going approach applies across the country’s technology sector. “If you see Ukraine’s flag next to a company name or logo, you can be sure that these are committed and dedicated people who can ship whatever happens,” he says.

Digital trade agreement

In September 2024, the British and Ukrainian governments signed a digital trade agreement. Klyagin says it primarily sent a message that the UK sees Ukraine as a reliable partner that it is safe to work with.

But it had practical benefits too, allowing Ukrainian companies to bid for public sector work in Britain and making it easier for British organisations to share intellectual property with them. While Redwerk has not yet won any public sector business in the UK, it recently started quality assurance work for Granola AI, a London-based meeting note-taking service.

Andrii Lytvyn, strategic development director of the IT Ukraine Association, says that the digital trade agreement – the second signed by Britain, following Singapore – was an important step and some Ukrainian suppliers are opening representative offices in the UK.

He adds that the association’s surveys of nearly 260 member companies employing more than 100,000 IT specialists have found that they have retained work despite dealing with the conflict: “No one lost a contract because of the war,” he says of the research.

Lytvyn says that the association used to promote Ukraine’s technology industry generally but now focuses on specific areas of expertise including agriculture, education, financial services, AI and cyber security. The last sector draws on the frequent cyber attacks the country suffers, with Lytvyn adding: “We are dealing with it every day.”

To promote Ukraine’s edtech providers, the association attended the BETT education conference in London in 2025 and 2026 and may do so again next January. It has also supported specific events aimed at strengthening links with the UK. The association sees govtech as another strong area with the Ukrainian government’s Diia digital services used by more than 14 million people, including an app that supports digital versions of 11 official documents including identity cards, passports and driving licences.

Lytvyn argues that those concerned about working with companies in Ukraine should “look at the facts, not the fear”, with the Code Economy report tracking an increase in global exports between 2024 and 2025 after a couple of years of decline.

“You will not find a more experienced crisis management country. Other countries will need this experience,” he says. “We do not need voluntary help. Do business with us.”

The Code Economy report found particularly strong growth in exports to other Eastern European countries including Latvia, Finland and Estonia, with its authors seeing Eastern Europe as a key software development location for companies in the US and Western Europe.

How an Estonian cyber security company supports Ukraine

Such trade can work in both directions, with Estonian cyber security training provider CybExer Technologies counting Ukraine’s military and intelligence services as customers for nearly a decade. With European Union funding, it helped protect the resilience of Ukraine’s 2019 general election which brought Zelenskyy to power. 

CybExer chairman and co-founder Lauri Almann knows Ukraine well, having worked in Estonia’s Kyiv embassy at the age of 19, less than a decade after both countries emerged as independent nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Between 2004 and 2008, he was a permanent secretary of Estonia’s defence ministry and had to deal with 2007’s waves of cyber attacks on public sector, financial and media organisations after the government moved a Soviet-era bronze statue of a soldier from central Tallinn to a military cemetery.

The war is the ultimate place to listen to the customer experience and their needs

Russian involvement in Bronze Night was suspected although not proven. Estonia has since developed a formidable national reputation for its technology prowess, including in cyber security, government and health.

CybExer’s Cyber Range software supports ‘live fire’ training exercises that simulate cyber attacks. Almann says that its Ukrainian customers draw on deep experience of Russian attacks in designing its training, something which then helps CybExer to improve its training for others.

“The customer is smarter, they see much more. We need to have a little bit of humility,” he says. “The war is the ultimate place to listen to the customer experience and their needs.”

The company has taken a number of steps to serve Ukraine in wartime. It physically delivers software and installs it in sealed on-premise environments, rather than providing it as a cloud service, then hands control to the Ukrainian authorities. To support this, it developed specific training, which it has since provided as an option to military customers in other countries. It has made its software more robust so the system can better cope with power disruptions. It gives Ukrainian customers freedom to decide who uses the software and how, charging set fees rather than per seat licences – something else the company has tried elsewhere.

As well as supporting military and intelligence services, it has run resilience work with the country’s energy sector, including cyber security exercises where staff were under attack from missiles.

“I must take my hat off to Ukraine’s energy sector. It’s permanently under attack,” says Almann.

Again, such experience can help customers elsewhere, with a British power generation plant closed after a cyber attack linked to Iran recently.

Post-war opportunities

Almann sees CybExer’s work for Ukraine as “defining” for his company. “One cannot be relevant if one does not learn from what’s happening in Ukraine,” he says, although attacks from Iran and AI systems are also important. “We are proud of how well Ukrainians have managed to take the technology, build on this technology and make it better.”

He sees a big future for Ukraine’s technology industry when the war is over, given the reputation it has built for delivery. CybExer, which is planning to expand its operations there, already uses Ukrainian subcontractors who, over five years, have delivered “on time, in budget, under missile attacks and no excuses”, with Almann describing them as “a come hell-or-high-water type of partner”.

He adds that given the country’s capabilities and scale, “it will become a California of Europe – it has all the potential”.

IT Ukraine Association’s Andrii Lytvyn says that post war, the country hopes to move from mainly selling technology services to developing its own software products, as well as doing more on cyber security and AI. Its technology companies want to build on export successes by selling more domestically to replace legacy Russian software and technology.

Redwerk’s Konstantin Klyagin adds that Ukraine has more than quarter of a million technology professionals who, after the war, will be able to develop their potential fully: “If we can ship this much at a time of war, think what happens if we take the bombs away.”