Shaming Apple and texting Elon Musk, a Ukraine miner uses novel war tactics

After war began last month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine turned to Mykhailo Fedorov, a vice prime miner, for a key role.
Fedorov, 31, the youngest member of Zelenskyy’s Cabinet, immediately took charge of a parallel prong of Ukraine’s defense against Russia. He began a campaign to rally support from multinational businesses to sunder Russia from the world economy and to cut off the country from the global internet, taking aim at everything from access to new iPhones and PlayStations to Western Union money transfers and PayPal.

To achieve Russia’s isolation, Fedorov, a former tech entrepreneur, used a mix of social media, cryptocurrencies and other digital tools. On Twitter and other social media, he pressured Apple, Google, Netflix, Intel, PayPal and others to stop doing business in Russia. He helped form a group of volunteer hackers to wreak havoc on Russian websites and online services. His minry also set up a cryptocurrency fund that has raised more than $60 million for the Ukrainian military.
The work has made Fedorov one of Zelenskyy’s most visible lieutenants, deploying technology and finance as modern weapons of war. In effect, Fedorov is creating a new playbook for military conflicts that shows how an outgunned country can use the internet, crypto, digital activism and frequent posts on Twitter to help undercut a foreign aggressor.
In his first in-depth interview since the invasion began Feb. 24, Fedorov said his goal was to create a “digital blockade” and to make life so unpleasant and inconvenient for Russian citizens that they would question the war. He praised companies that had pulled out of Russia but said Apple, Google and others could go further with steps such as completely cutting off their app stores in the country.

A technological and business blockade, he said, “is an integral component of stopping the aggression.”
Fedorov, speaking via videoconference from an undisclosed location somewhere around Kyiv, also brushed off concerns that his actions were alienating urban Russians who might be the most likely to oppose the conflict.
“We believe that as long as Russians are silent that they are complicit to the aggression and to the killing of our people,” he said.
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Fedorov’s work is not the only reason that multinational companies like Meta and McDonald’s have withdrawn from Russia, with the war’s human toll provoking horror and outrage. Economic sanctions the United States, European Union and others have played a central role in isolating Russia.
But Peter Singer, a professor at the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University, said Fedorov had been “incredibly effective” in calling for companies to rethink their Russia connections.
Fedorov grew up in the small town of Vasylivka in southern Ukraine near the Dnieper River. Before going into politics, he started a digital marketing company called SMMSTUDIO that designed online advertising campaigns.

The work led him to a job in 2018 with Zelenskyy, then an actor who was making an unexpected run for Ukraine’s presidency. Fedorov became the campaign’s director of digital, using social media to portray Zelenskyy as a youthful symbol of change.
After Zelenskyy was elected in 2019, he appointed Fedorov, then 28, to be miner of digital transformation, putting him in charge of digitizing Ukrainian social services. Through a government app, people could pay speeding tickets or manage their taxes. Last year, Fedorov visited Silicon Valley to meet with leaders including Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Fedorov immediately pressured tech companies to pull out of Russia. He made the decision with Zelenskyy’s backing, he said, and the two men speak every day.

“I think this choice is as black and white as it ever gets,” Fedorov said. “It is time to take a side, either to take the side of peace or to take the side of terror and murder.”
On Feb. 25, he sent letters to Apple, Google and Netflix, asking them to restrict access to their services in Russia. Less than a week later, Apple stopped selling new iPhones and other products in Russia.
The next day, Fedorov tweeted a message to Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, asking for help in obtaining Starlink satellite internet systems that are made Musk’s company SpaceX. The technology could help Ukrainians stay online even if Russia damaged the country’s main telecommunications infrastructure. Two days after contacting Musk, a shipment of Starlink equipment arrived in Ukraine.

@elonmusk, while you try to colonize Mars — Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand.
— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 26, 2022
Since then, Fedorov said he has periodically exchanged text messages with Musk.
Fedorov also had a call last month with Karan Bhatia, a Google vice president. Google has since made several changes, including restricting access to certain Google Maps features that Fedorov said were safety risks because they could help Russian soldiers identify crowds of people. The company has since then also suspended sales of other products and services and Friday blocked access to Russian state media globally on YouTube.
Fedorov has traded emails with Nick Clegg, head of global affairs at Meta, which is the parent of Facebook and Instagram, about the unfolding war.

Apple, Google and Meta declined to comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
In many instances, the Russian government is cutting itself off from the world, including blocking access to Twitter and Facebook. On Friday, Russian regulators said they would also restrict access to Instagram and called Meta an “extrem” organization.
Some civil society groups have questioned whether Fedorov’s tactics could have unintended consequences. “Shutdowns can be used in tyranny, not in democracy,” the Internet Protection Society, an internet freedom group in Russia, said in a statement earlier this week. “Any sanctions that disrupt access of Russian people to information only strengthen Putin’s regime.”

Fedorov said it was the only way to jolt the Russian people into action. He praised the work of Ukraine-supporting hackers who have been coordinating loosely with Ukrainian government to hit Russian targets.
“After cruise missiles started flying over my house and over houses of many other Ukrainians, and also things started exploding, we decided to go into counter attack,” he said.
Fedorov’s work is an example of Ukraine’s whatever-it-takes attitude against a larger Russian army, said Max Chernikov, a software engineer who is supporting the volunteer group known as the IT Army of Ukraine.
“He acts like every Ukrainian — doing beyond his best,” he said.