Kyiv launches Tallinn Mechanism with allies to bolster cyber defenses amid Russian attacks

Ukraine and ten of its allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, created the Tallinn Mechanism to strengthen cyber resilience and jointly counter hacker attacks, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba reported on X (Twitter).

The task of the new mechanism will be to coordinate participants and build civil cyber capacity to "strengthen Ukraine's cybersecurity and civilian cyber capabilities, better defend itself in cyberspace, and meet long-term cyber resilience needs."

The Tallinn Mechanism combines the efforts of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States. The group will closely coordinate efforts with the European Union and NATO, and is open for other countries to join, Kuleba noted.

As Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Minister of State for the UK government, said, "Russia is attacking Ukraine's cyber infrastructure in order to harm innocent people, choke the economy and sow confusion. That is why the UK is supporting Ukraine with state of the art technology, tools and expertise to thwart these cruel attacks, including those on critical infrastructure. Our support remains steadfast."

At the end of 2022, a cyber attack by Russian special services was directed against the energy system of Ukraine, which disrupted the energy supply of one of the regions at the time of a missile attack.

A September 2023 cyber attack on the information resources of the International Criminal Court in The Hague was an espionage attempt to undermine the court's mandate to investigate war crimes, the ICC said.