MWL LAS VEGAS PREVIEW UNWRAPPED: Kyivstar CTO Volodymyr Lutchenko (pictured) advised peers around the world to proactively analyse and eliminate network weak points, as he shared insight on how the Ukrainian operator has kept communications running in the face of cyber and physical bombardment.

The executive told Mobile World Live the company had worked hard to battle against the impact of physical attacks on infrastructure during the ongoing war and daily attempted Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) and phishing attempts.

As a result of its work, Lutchenko said while around 6 per cent of its network was located in occupied territories, the remaining 94 per cent is working “really well,” with network KPIs almost at pre-war levels. This marks a great improvement on figures from the height of the invasion cited by the company’s CEO at MWC23 Barcelona.

“My main message for telco execs – study your network, find your weak points and eliminate them before the problems come,” he said, hinting at some of the specific insights he is set to share during MWC Las Vegas.

In terms of upcoming challenges in Ukraine, the executive cited the potential for further attacks on energy infrastructure in the upcoming winter months which caused significant problems last year.

Moving forward the company is focused on continued network renovation, which Lutchenko highlighted had continued despite the war. Parent Veon has already pledged $600 million of funding to this end with a deal also in place with Rakuten Symphony to explore use of open RAN.

Lutchenko will feature at GSMA Sec Con 2023: Securing Telecoms in Times of Conflict, held at MWC Las Vegas on Wednesday 27 September, between 9:30am and 12:30pm PDT.