Challenges to national defence in contemporary geopolitical situation

This article examines Ukraine’s legal framework for ensuring state security. The study aims to assess the current stage of its development and to propose legal improvements that align with international security standards. The findings indicate that Ukraine’s legislation lacks a unified conceptual approach to defining state security, resulting in legal uncertainty and inefficiencies in protective measures. Three key dimensions of state security are identified: substantive (a set of military actions to counter threats), institutional (the distribution of powers among authorities), and organizational-legal (a system of regulatory provisions). The concept of state security is proposed to be understood as preventive and deterrent measures undertaken by the state to safeguard territorial integrity. The study concludes that a legal framework distinguishing state security from national and military security should be developed. It further advocates legislative reforms to strengthen Ukraine’s resilience against modern threats and to ensure the effective protection of national interests.

The methodological foundations of the formation of analytical support for public administration of cybersecurity have been improved. Based on a combination of hierarchical and non-hierarchical clustering methods using the IBM SPSS Statistics package, the country’s regions have been grouped into four clusters, which is the basis for adjusting the priorities of the state cybersecurity policy, a well-grounded approach when choosing means and instruments of influence at the regional level. In modern doctrine and practice of international law, the issues of qualification of cyber warfare remain controversial. There are approaches to justify the application of international humanitarian and criminal law. The most justified, in our opinion, is the qualification of cyber warfare as a violation of the UNO Charter and the use of force, and in some cases – the crime of aggression. The substantive rules of the institution of international cooperation in the fight against cybercrime determine the special principles of this kind of cooperation, the criminalization of certain types of illegal acts, as well as institutional mechanisms and capacity building. The system of international combating cybercrime is based on the principles of technical neutrality, multi-stakeholderism (public-private partnerships), as well as the equivalence of human rights online and offline. In the future, cybercrime will be associated with the use of innovative technologies. As it has been established by the example of the Internet of things, the latest technology, as a general rule, is included in the scope of existing international agreements on cybercrime, but there is no special regulation for them. We propose formal consolidation of the provision on “emergent technologies” in the texts of international legal acts in the field of combating cybercrime. First of all, this concerns the future UNO Convention on the fight against cybercrime, which should also provide for an additional body, such as the T-CY Committee under the Council of Europe Convention, which will provide clarification on the application of the agreement in specific changed circumstances.

The authors have investigated the features of legal support for cybersecurity in some of the leading countries of the world, have established the organizational basis for its support, as well as the main aspects of NATO and the EU’s activities and standards in this area. In particular, the essence of the concept of cybersecurity is determined by referring to the views of both foreign scientists and Ukrainian scientists, and fixing this definition in normative documents of international importance (international standard ISO/IEC 27032:2012). Actual strategic goals in the direction of ensuring cybersecurity in countries such as France, the UK, the United States, as well as the settlement of these issues at the legislative level in Ukraine are highlighted. It has been established which state bodies operate in the indicated countries, whose powers include ensuring cybersecurity. Attention is paid to the settlement of cybersecurity and cyber protection issues at the international level, in particular at the EU and NATO levels. Particular attention is paid to NATO standards – TEMPEST. The content of the norms of the current legislation of Ukraine in the field of ensuring cybersecurity and the nature of the priority tasks of the National Cyber Security Coordination Center under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine are disclosed, which are normatively enshrined in the relevant Regulation. The features of the regulatory and organizational support of cybersecurity in some leading countries of the world and in Ukraine are structured.

The scientific literature points out that cooperation increases the capability of an enterprise to engage in innovative activities. Besides, due to a change in the concept of regional development, much greater focus in growth in territories is placed on human capital, and the essential role of education and knowledge in innovation is stressed as well. Sustainable innovation is not only an economic category, and it mainly involves a social process where cooperation plays a great role. The research aim of the paper is to assess cooperation as a factor influencing sustainable innovation in the regional aspect based on the case of the bioeconomy industry in Latvia. The development of the bioeconomy represents transition from fossil to renewable sources, and it encompasses important industries of the economies of the regions of Latvia: forestry and agriculture. In Latvia, bioeconomy industry enterprises were quite cautious in their innovative activity and mainly focused on existing innovations that they adapted to their needs, and their innovative activity was observed only within their region. A positive fact is that most of the enterprises highly rated their cooperation with scientific and research institutions in developing innovations. The promotion of cooperation is one of the objectives that specialists of the Entrepreneurship Centres of the planning regions of Latvia have to deal with, yet their capacity is not sufficient for the promotion of cooperation among innovative enterprises in the region in the context of sustainability.

Lately a lot of attention has been given to legal regulation of cybersecurity. This article will review legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania. Historical retrospective of legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania will be discussed, strategic Lithuanian cybersecurity documents will be analysed, and the Law on Cybersecurity of the Republic of Lithuania will be analysed and evaluated. After a comparative analysis of cybersecurity strategies and laws and a review of legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania, gaps of law-making and of other measures were distinguished, and corresponding conclusions were made. The adoption of the new Law on Cybersecurity, which regulates many important institutes, is evaluated positively. But with regard to the current legal regulation on cybersecurity in Lithuania additional measures are necessary (functions of institutions that formulate cybersecurity policy and perform control functions have not been detailed and distinguished, also functions of the Lithuanian national Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) are not foreseen in the Law on Cybersecurity, etc.).