Ukraine Continues Digital Innovation Amid War: The Story Behind TIME's Choice of "Online Marriage" - How Diia Transformed Love and Administration

Photo: Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine / Ukraine.ua – CC BY 4.0

1. Introduction

In June 2025, the BBC reported on the electronic government infrastructure built by Ukraine under the title "Ukraine: Why it has one of the most digital governments." Despite the unprecedented crisis of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine has continued to provide its citizens with "normalcy" by condensing administrative services into a single smartphone—the symbol of which is the app and portal **Diia**.hks.harvard.edu

Photo: Anton Filonenko, Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine / Ukraine.ua – CC BY 4.0

2. Birth of the "State in a Smartphone" Concept

In 2019, then 31-year-old Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov proposed a vision of "zero paper, zero offices." In February 2020, "Diia 1.0" was officially launched, allowing nine types of e-documents, such as driver's licenses and passports, to be displayed on a smartphone screen. Legal revisions recognized digital IDs as equivalent to physical IDs, making them valid for presentation at administrative offices.en.wikipedia.org

3. Service Expansion and User Numbers

• End of 2021: Number of services over 100

• 2023: Registered users 19 million

• April 2025: Number of services 140+ / Users 22 million hks.harvard.edu

Establish a company online in 10 minutes, pay taxes in 5 minutes, and obtain a maternity record book or vehicle inspection certificate with a few taps—transforming "government" into an "app-like UX."

4. Resilience During Wartime

Within three weeks of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, the government added features for refugee benefits, damaged housing compensation, and the **e-Enemy** function for reporting enemy positions. It was said, "Even if the office disappears due to shelling, the state is in your hand."

5. International Rankings and Evaluations

In the United Nations' "Online Service Index," Ukraine jumped from 102nd to 5th in just six years, and TIME magazine selected the "online marriage" feature as one of the Top 200 Innovations of the World in 2024.hks.harvard.edutime.com

6. Reactions on Social Media - Praise and Concerns

• LinkedIn, Fedorov posted, "Diia has been included in TIME's Best Inventions. Today, the number of users surpassed 21 million." It received over 10,000 likes, with congratulatory comments flooding in, saying "It's the era where Ukraine leads innovation."linkedin.com

• On **X (formerly Twitter)**, "#DiiaApp" trended, with praises like "No need for paper documents or government offices" and "Reassuring to pay taxes even from evacuation sites," while threads pointing out the "risks of the state having centralized control over personal data" also spread.

• On Ukrainian social media, debates arose around "online marriage," with opinions like "lacking romance" and "a miracle connecting the battlefield and homeland," and the number of uses exceeded 600 couples in two months.odessa-journal.com
  
  

7. Technical Architecture and Open Sourcing

In March 2024, the app'sfrontend/backend code will be made available for free on GitHub, allowing governments worldwide to fork it. The API-first, microservices architecture, characterized by a "patchwork" design, enables connection with legacy core systems in the former Soviet Union.

8. Expansion of the Private Ecosystem

• Diia.City: A special zone for IT companies (tax incentives, Anglo-American law-type contracts). 1,560 companies participate.

• Diia.Business: SME support hubs deployed in 14 cities plus Warsaw.

• Diia.Education: 2.4 million participants in digital literacy courses.
  U.S. companies like Visa and Google, along with domestic startups, are integrating APIs, leading to a rapid emergence of financial, logistics, and educational SAAS.hks.harvard.edu

9. Implications for Japan

As of the end of 2024, Japan's My Number Card will not reach a 70% adoption rate, with services like "convenience store issuance" remaining limited. In contrast, Ukraine has advanced seamlessly through **"legal reform → UX design → public-private API release."** Here are the implications.

1. Political Commitment: The Zelensky administration legislated "Paper Zero" to suppress bureaucratic resistance.

2. User Incentives: Implemented "profitable" features such as business startups and tax deductions ahead of schedule.

3. Phased Migration: The old system was kept alive with API wrapping to avoid a complete overhaul.

10. Privacy and Cyber Defense

Data is distributed across state-owned and Western company clouds with mandatory 256-bit encryption and facial recognition for all cases. In 2023, the number of cyber attacks blocked per day was 3,500, comparable to Estonia. However, civic groups are concerned about "the risk of government repurposing for surveillance" and are calling for the audit committee to be opened to the private sector.

11. Global Expansion

In 2023, USAID hosted "Diia in DC" to support technology transfer to 20 countries in the Global South. The UK and Kenya are considering trial implementations, and Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has dispatched a delegation for observation.

12. Conclusion

The challenge of "putting the nation on a smartphone" has influenced not only the UX of administration but also the resilience of citizens during wartime. Ukraine's case demonstrates that digitalization is not merely about efficiency but an infrastructure to defend sovereignty and democracy. What Japan should learn next is not technology but first political and social consensus building, leading to a future of "zero queue society."