The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is looking for ways to address the fear of mobilization among IT professionals. The department is considering introducing special contracts for technical specialists who will serve as digital officers to guarantee them work in their specialty.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is looking for ways to address the fear of mobilization among IT professionals. The department is considering introducing special contracts for technical specialists who will serve as digital officers to guarantee them work in their specialty.
This was stated by Deputy Minister of Defense for Digitalization Oksana Ferchuk during the DOU Day 2026 conference. The discussion was also attended by the Head of the Main Department of Information Technologies of the Ministry of Defense, Oleg Berestov.
One of the biggest barriers to recruiting programmers to the military is the fear of being transferred from a specialized technical position to a combat unit. According to Oksana Ferchuk, the ministry understands this problem and is currently in constant contact with all assigned specialists.
"We understand that this fear will not just go away, so we are thinking about how to introduce separate contracts for IT specialists. So that we have a guarantee from the state that a person will remain in the position they were hired for," the deputy minister noted.
For his part, Oleg Berestov emphasized that the best protection against transfer is the high-quality performance of one's duties. According to him, if a specialist brings value, he will be created good conditions for service. To assess the work of IT workers in uniform, it is planned to announce a digitalization efficiency index in the summer. If a person does not cope with the duties in a certain position, they will be looked for another digital role according to their skills, and not transferred immediately to the infantry.
In total, over 2,000 positions have been opened within the initiative. There are no strict deadlines for recruitment, as the emphasis is on the professionalism of the candidates. Over 2,000 applications were received in the first month of operation, and 800 specialists have already received positions.
However, the share of candidates from the civilian sector is only 16%. The Ministry of Defense attributes this to the lack of awareness among the community about the possibilities of targeted mobilization and the support of the candidate through all the formalities. The department notes that they are trying to interact with IT associations to popularize the project, but have not yet found support.
Recall that the position of "digital officer" was created to strengthen the technological component of the army. Such specialists are engaged in the implementation of situational awareness systems, cybersecurity, communication settings, and IT infrastructure support directly in the units.
Last year, Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine for Digitalization Oksana Ferchuk said that the Ministry of Defense is planning an IT reform that involves the introduction of digital officer positions up to the battalion level.
