Ukrainian resilience has many dimensions, but during wartime it rests on two priorities: protecting civilians and sustaining the defence effort. As former deputy minister for communities, territories and infrastructure, Oleksandra Azarkhina, noted in a recent discussion, crucial steps taken in the early days – and even before the full-scale invasion – form the core of Ukraine’s resilience today.

September 24, 2025 –
Bohdan Tierokhin
–
Articles and Commentary

Photo: ZagAlex / Shutterstock

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has ushered in a new era of war in Europe – one where the decisive factor is not solely the strength of armies, but the resilience of entire societies and nations. Until recently, the idea of a “war of attrition” in which civilian endurance would shape the outcome was rarely discussed in European security debates. For decades, Europe’s armed forces had focused on projecting military power far from home, in Africa, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific – while the defence of the European homeland itself became an almost obsolete concept. Even after Russia’s aggression in 2014, many political leaders across the continent struggled to imagine a scenario in which large-scale war would return to Europe.

The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine did not immediately break this mindset. Instead, the first responses from some capitals seemed almost performative. Most memorably, the “invitation for a ride” extended to Ukraine’s president to visit the United States alongside shipments of military helmets. This came at the same time as Germany’s historic foreign policy shift, marked by a sudden surge in defence spending. Yet it was only after Ukraine’s failed attempt to break through Russian defences in the south and southeast in 2023 that Europe’s decision-makers began to accept the hard truth: the Russian threat is here to stay.

Since 2023 resilience has moved to the forefront of strategic thinking, as Ukraine’s ability to slow Russia’s advance has underscored the importance of societal strength. Prior to the war, resilience was not a major theme in Ukraine’s public discourse. Yet the full-scale invasion did not allow for a neat, linear shift from peace to war. Ukraine entered a liminal phase, no longer in peacetime, yet not fully adapted to the demands of war. It was a period when the routines and assumptions of civilian life were already shattered, but the systems, habits, and logistics of a wartime society had not yet formed. In this suspended state, the luxury of slow preparation was gone, but the structures for sustained resistance were still being improvised. Decisions had to be made in real time, under pressure, with imperfect information. In such conditions, how quickly individuals and institutions could accept the new reality became as decisive as any material resource.

Ukraine’s resilience manifested in many forms, but three stand out for their transformative impact: the digitalisation of bureaucracy, the adaptability of infrastructure, and the reorganisation of logistics. I recently explored these dimensions with Oleksandra Azarkhina, former deputy minister for communities, territories and infrastructure development of Ukraine. Her work focused on strengthening the defence capabilities of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and strategic planning in the face of war.

Oleksandra Azarkhina, the former deputy minister for communities, territories and infrastructure development of Ukraine.

Digitalisation of bureaucracy

Before the war, Ukraine’s IT sector was one of the largest contributors to the country’s GDP, after only to agriculture and other traditional sectors of economy. In 2019 the ministry of digital transformation was established, fulfilling one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s key campaign promises. This early investment in digitalisation proved decisive in the first hours and days of the full-scale invasion, and it continues to shape Ukraine’s resilience today.

The war has shown that connectivity between decision-makers and society and between government services and citizens cannot be maintained at the same scale and depth under wartime conditions. Yet thanks to this digital foundation, Ukraine was able to adapt far more quickly than many expected. As Azarkhina emphasised, digitalisation in Ukraine was never just an “app solution,” but the result of years of institutional reconfiguration. It was not simply the achievement of skilled IT engineers, but the creation of a legal and institutional ecosystem. Laws, registries, and procedures had already been redesigned for digital use, meaning that when the war broke out, the infrastructure of governance could continue to function despite the chaos.

Bureaucracy has always been an obstacle to quick and efficient decision-making in government, regardless of time or place. In Ukraine, however, the already highly digitalised public sector, and in particular the multifunctional Diia application, helped to bypass many of these bottlenecks. Yet it was the shift into a genuine “wartime mode” that proved most decisive. As Azarkhina explained, this extraordinary phase lasted only four to five months: “The exceptions that had been created were eventually formalised.” In other words, the initial suspension of normal procedures was temporary, but it left behind structural changes that shaped governance for the long term.

During those first months, individual responsibility and initiative became the main drivers of wartime efficiency, since decisions had to be taken instantly. Azarkhina recalled: “Everyone acted with the awareness that the situation was extraordinary, and no one had written protocols for it. Everyone, in essence, followed a single guiding principle: the priority of preserving the state, and that was it. And, in fact, that was enough, because on the basis of that trust, on the basis of everyone acting from the same set of values, results were achieved.”

Shared values and a high level of trust within government and society were therefore crucial to Ukraine’s resilience. In those early months, urgency and collective commitment temporarily replaced bureaucracy. That unity allowed the state to survive its most dangerous moment.

Digitalisation is not an alternative to bureaucracy, nor merely a way of “speeding up paperwork”. It is a tool for reconfiguring bureaucracy itself. As Azarkhina stressed, “digitising chaos is easy,” but what mattered in Ukraine was the prior work of rebuilding procedures and institutions, and only then reinforcing them with digital tools. In this sense, digitalisation became the lever that transformed bureaucracy from something rigid and path-dependent into a system that could be adaptive and resilient.


🎙️ Listen to the latest Talk Eastern Europe podcast episode:


The adaptability of infrastructure:

Russia’s full-scale invasion demonstrated that civilian infrastructure is a cornerstone of national resilience and survival. At first, this was not self-evident. In the opening days of the war, Moscow hesitated to strike major infrastructure sites, suggesting that the Kremlin expected to quickly decapitate Ukraine’s leadership and then exploit existing facilities for its own use. But when the assault on Kyiv failed and Russian forces withdrew from the north, the nature of the war changed. Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv, followed by preparations for the liberation of Kherson, forced Russia into a war of attrition. Unable to secure rapid victories on the battlefield, Moscow shifted to systematically targeting civilian infrastructure, most notably from October 2022 onwards.

Ukraine had to respond. Officials quickly recognised that defending infrastructure was not only about shooting down incoming missiles with costly systems but also about “passive protection”. Azarkhina explains: “When you compare the costs of a functioning Patriot [missile] battery with the investments needed for concrete shelters – it’s more cost-effective to invest in concrete shelters. Because the losses from the collapse of the energy system are measured in billions, and those figures will never be comparable.”

The logic is clear even when looking at Israel: despite its far smaller territory, extensive support from the United States and the United Kingdom, and early-warning systems from regional partners, interception rates above 90 per cent still mean that the remaining 10 per cent of strikes can destroy critical infrastructure. For a country the size of Ukraine, whose vast territory makes comprehensive layered air defence impossible, one of the most effective options is to “dig in”, building hardened facilities and shelters to ensure survival against inevitable strikes.

As Azarkhina notes, “Ukraine worked closely with its partners, most notably the United States and the United Kingdom, while relying on Ukrainian contractors for implementation.” This blend of external expertise and local execution produced a tiered system of protection, from lighter defences to reinforced concrete structures. Resilience, in this sense, was not improvised but deliberately engineered as a collaborative effort.

If we zoom in, this logic of protection filtered into civilian life as well. Across Ukraine, people began reinforcing their own apartments. Azarkhina herself shared how she converted her walk-in closet into a shelter to protect her family from Russian drones, a practice now common among many Ukrainians. Such accounts illustrate how war has blurred the boundary between civilian and military space, embedding resilience into the most intimate corners of daily life.

Reorganisation of logistics

There is a well-known saying: “Amateurs talk about strategy, professionals talk about logistics.” Indeed, logistics is the backbone of sustaining large-scale conflict, supplying not only millions of soldiers at the front with food, water, ammunition, and fuel, but also ensuring that the civilian rear remains functional. Russia’s failed northern advance in 2022 vividly illustrated this point: its supply lines were too stretched and disorganised to sustain large formations with fuel and provisions. By contrast, Ukraine’s success in last year’s Kursk incursion was made possible by shorter, more secure interior lines of communication.

Logistics, and especially the preliminary preparations for a potential large-scale war, proved vital to resilience.

Azarkhina recalled that her team had been quietly preparing even before February 24th: “Back then in the government we were a team of ‘panickers,’ so we bought fuel for Ukrainian railways in advance. And then with that stock of fuel that we had purchased, we and the army managed for quite some time… logistics wins the war, that’s really what it’s about.”

What Ukraine’s transformation under war reveals is that, at least for a time, blurring the lines between the civilian and the military becomes a necessary step for national survival. What had once been Azarkhina’s civilian ministry of infrastructure effectively became part of the defence apparatus, placing all its resources at the military’s disposal. Railways, trucks, and civilian logistics networks were transformed into instruments of frontline defence.

She added that “we used trucks and railways … I was a representative of the ministry of infrastructure, my boss was sitting directly with the president and alongside the General Staff. And that, of course, made decision-making much easier.”

Decentralisation also played a decisive role, driven by small businesses and ordinary citizens who used their trucks, buses, and cars to meet frontline needs and support logistics. As Azarkhina noted: “The hardest work was done by volunteers. These were associations of Ukrainian international road carriers … later set up donations from Ukrainian businesses. And they still transported everything free of charge. So, until December 2023, this was all fully coordinated like that. Zero state funds spent.”

This system was extremely difficult for Russia to disrupt. It is one thing to destroy a centralised logistical hub, but quite another when there are hundreds, if not thousands, of improvised hubs and networks coordinated by civilians. She concluded by stressing that allocating 1.5 per cent of the promised five per cent of GDP for defence (as pledged within NATO) to infrastructure is indeed important. At the same time, she warned that politicising this issue can be dangerous, since states might exploit it as a loophole to avoid investing directly in defence.

As Azarkhina put it: “Infrastructure is part of the defence system … but obviously, the top priority has to be defence capability, and only after that [should be] infrastructure in terms of military mobility, and so on.”

Balancing resilience

Ukraine has sustained its defences and, crucially, its home front through the remarkable resilience of society. This resilience has been embodied in the digitalisation of state institutions, the transformation of civilian infrastructure, and the adaptability of logistics. One might argue that while soldiers on the frontlines confront a tangible, visible enemy, the home front has been just as essential a pillar of resilience, enabling those soldiers to fight.

History underscores this point. In the First World War, Germany’s collapse was rooted above all in the breakdown of its home front, long before its army was defeated in the field. In the Second World War, the strategic bombing of civilians sought to undermine morale and weaken national resolve. These examples demonstrate that resilience at the societal level is as decisive as military strength, since enemies will always attempt to apply pressure by targeting civilians or stirring unrest in domestic politics.

Resilience, therefore, must be carefully balanced: protecting citizens from devastating airstrikes, ensuring the efficient functioning of government and its connection with society, and securing the steady flow of war materiel to the frontlines. This balance defines the essence of Ukraine’s resilience today.

Bohdan Tierokhin is a student at the University of Dundee, studying International Relations and Politics with a focus on EU-NATO relations in defence and security. He is interested in strategic studies and military innovations.

New Eastern Europe is a reader supported publication. Please support us and help us reach our goal of $10,000! We are nearly there. Donate by clicking on the button below.


infrastructure, resilience, Russia’s war against Ukraine, Ukraine