Identity, cyber-sovereignty, and Ukraine: Towards an ontological security theory of cyberwarfare

In 2022, Ukraine centralised its social, economic, and kinetic resources to counter the Russian invasion. Yet, in cyberspace, it mustered an anonymous, volunteer, unregulated IT Army and relocated critical data to private servers abroad, decentralising its cyber-response and ceding its sovereignty, which in war tends to be consolidated by the state, to non-state actors instead. Drawing on ontological security (OS) theory, I argue that these measures were shaped more by Ukraine’s pursuit of a stable identity than concern for practical expediency. They have helped Ukraine secure its democratic self-image by affirming its preference for decentralised self-governed non-state agency, its affinity with the West, distinctiveness from Russia, and its capacity for being a role model to others. The findings challenge the existing literature by demonstrating that states may prioritise the preservation of their identity over cyber-sovereignty and that non-state cyber-actors can provide OS for the state and its subjects rather than disrupt it.