About 4,500 people were involved in the IT department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine when Oksana Ferchuk was in charge of it. Up to 400 specialists were directly subordinate to her, and about 400 more specialists worked as contractors for donor funds.
About 4,500 people were involved in the IT department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine when Oksana Ferchuk was in charge of it. Up to 400 specialists were directly subordinate to her, and about 400 more specialists worked as contractors for donor funds.
Ferchuk told this in an interview with Forbes. Before moving to the Ministry of Digital Affairs on July 16, 2026, she worked for four years at the Ministry of Defense, in particular, she was the Deputy Minister for Digitalization.
According to her, about 4,500 people is a combined estimate, including the IT units of the General Staff. «Under direct management, there are up to 400 specialists. But there are also IT units of the General Staff. In total, we have about 4,500 people,» Ferchuk said.
Separately, the Ministry of Defense attracted about 400 specialist contractors with donor funds. Some of the specialists also began to be transferred to the state enterprise «Digital Army».
Ferchuk explained that the idea behind creating such an enterprise is to form a stable structure to support military IT products even after the end of the war or demobilization. «The analogy is simple: to grow a company as successful and organized as the State Enterprise „Diya“ so that, despite the end of the war or demobilization, it would be a bulwark of stability for military products,» she said.
According to Ferchuk, the digitalization of the Ministry of Defense has changed significantly during the full-scale war. «In 2022, there was nothing: data centers, donors, specialists. Now the Ministry of Defense is space: there is a strategy and an understanding of where to go. We have been working on OKRs all year. This is heaven and earth compared to where we started,» she said.
Since the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Defense has attracted more than $1 billion in donor funds. Approximately half of this amount, according to Ferchuk, went to communication equipment — satellite communications, walkie-talkies, mesh networks, etc. A significant part of the remaining funds was directed to licenses, cloud services, and cyber products.
Ferchuk also said that during her time at the Ministry of Defense, the digital vertical encompassed not only logistics. Among the systems they worked on were the military personnel registry, the SAP-based personnel management system, Impulse, and other products.
The fastest leap in the digital transformation of the Ministry of Defense, according to her, occurred during her time working with Mikhail Fedorov.
«He set a high pace, direction, and sharpness of change,» Ferchuk said.
