Russia gets triggered by Ukraine joining NATO cyberdefense hub

Russia’s ambassador to Estonia today compared Ukraine’s participation in NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) intel-sharing cyberdefense hub to an attempt at blackmail.

CCDCOE is a NATO-accredited cyberdefense hub used by member nations for research, training, and exercises covering several areas, including tech, strategy, operations, and law.

Although being accepted as a contributing participant, this does not make Ukraine a NATO member, but it will most likely tighten collaboration and will also allow it to gain access to NATO members’ cyber-expertise and share its own.

“Political, economic, ideological and military blackmail”

NATO’s decision to accept Ukraine as a CCDCOE contributing participant was symbolic and it illustrates plans of “integration with NATO infrastructure,” according to ambassador Vladimir Lipayev.

“Our suspicions on this score have turned out to be correct,” Lipayev told TASS in an interview today.

“This first step will certainly entail others, pursuing the aim of converting Ukraine into a stronghold for political, economic, ideological and military blackmail of Russia.”

However, he also said that the country’s participation in NATO’s cyber hub itself shouldn’t lead to significant threats to Russia’s security given that some of the 30 countries sharing intel via CCDCOE are yet to join the alliance as members.

“NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Tallinn has operated since 2008 with more than 30 countries, some of them not NATO members, taking part,” Lipayev added.

“Estonia and Ukraine have maintained cooperation in the cyber sphere for a number of years.”

Endeavors to join the NATO alliance stomped by Russia

Ukraine’s path to becoming a NATO member started at the 2008 Bucharest Summit when its first attempt to join was denied following strong objections from Russia.

However, thirteen years later, the alliance re-confirmed during the June 2021 Brussels Summit that Ukraine will become a NATO member after going through the Membership Action Plan “as an integral part of the process.”

“NATO leaders confirmed that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance and the MAP is an integral part of the membership process,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the time.

“Ukraine deserves due appreciation of its role in ensuring Euro-Atlantic security.”