“The system has saved Ukraine an estimated 159 000 years of queue time, eliminated approximately €1.5 billion in corruption costs, and another €1.1 billion through automation processes.”
When development of Trembita began back in 2017, few could have anticipated the scale of its impact. Nearly a decade later, the Ukranian national interoperability platform has processed more than 23 billion exchanges, serves 22 million users, and has transformed Ukraine into a global leader in digital governance. This remarkable achievement represents not just a technological success, but a fundamental reimagining of how citizens interact with their government.
Trembita's story is one of strategic vision, resilience through adversity, and the power of effective international collaboration. Speaking about this transformation are Yurii Kopytin – Senior Expert at the e-Governance Academy – and Yuriy Turiy – Deputy Director at Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine – who have been instrumental in shepherding the platform from concept to critical infrastructure.
A foundation built on foresight
Ukraine's vision for digital transformation was clear from the beginning: become the most convenient digital state. The adoption of UXP as Trembita's foundation proved prescient, yet even its architects acknowledge that the speed and scale of adoption exceeded early expectations, though perhaps not their ambitions.
"When I helped prepare the architecture of Ukraine's digital government, I added Trembita as a core component alongside identification solutions, service portals and registers," Kopytin explains. "That's why it is the core of the government. For me, nothing is new from this." For Turiy, the platform's growth felt equally natural: as Ukraine climbed global governance indices, Trembita grew alongside it, processing billions of transactions annually.
The platform's development involved several pivotal moments. Working closely with Cybernetica, teams developed core functionality and navigated the intricate territory of software certification. The first data exchange through Diia, Ukraine's digital citizen app, proved the system could handle high-volume workloads. These milestones weren't obstacles overcome, rather the evidence of the platform's potential.
Performance tested by war
When Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the platform faced its most severe test. UXP’s decentralised architecture that had been central to Trembita's design proved its worth. While some registers temporarily migrated to alternative data centres, the system's resilience meant they automatically reconnected once relocated. "Trembita continues working successfully during wartime," Kopytin says. "The fact that it is decentralised made it a great solution."
It was a real-world validation that thoughtful infrastructure design could withstand existential threats. For Ukraine's citizens and government, it meant that digital services continued functioning even as the country endured Europe's largest conflict since World War II.
Scaling beyond expectations
The original architects estimated Trembita would handle 5 billion transactions. Today, it surpasses 23 billion – a figure that becomes meaningful only when contextualised. Divided across Ukraine's population, Turiy notes, "that's one transaction per day per person for an entire year."
Beyond transaction volume, Trembita has exceeded expectations in performance and flexibility, since underlying technology UXP demonstrates no practical limits on package sizes, only time-based constraints. These technical achievements enabled cascading innovations. The eBaby service, a public service for new parents, integrates 10 separate government services through Trembita. Border crossing now processes permits through the platform automatically. Electronic documents, weapon permits, and countless other services operate seamlessly behind this infrastructure.
"Trembita is invisible when it works fine," Kopytin observes. This invisibility represents success. Citizens use government services daily without knowing that Trembita channels the data flows beneath the surface. The system has saved Ukraine an estimated 285 500 years of queue time, eliminated approximately €1.5 billion in corruption costs, and another €1.1 billion through automation processes.
The multiplier effect of widespread adoption
What transforms Trembita from impressive technical infrastructure into transformational policy enabler is widespread adoption. No new government service launches in Ukraine without it. This level of traction means the platform has become non-negotiable in the public imagination. Turiy confirms that it's something that no citizen is willing to give up to go back to the old model.
For policymakers worldwide, this raises important questions about digital government prerequisites. Turiy identifies three non-negotiable foundations: a unified digital portal where citizens access all services in one place, electronic identification systems, and a data exchange platform. "With these three main parts," he says, "every country can move fast in digital transformation."
Kopytin adds another qualifier: this infrastructure requires flexibility, continuous learning and willingness to adapt. "You need to be ready to do something new, and also to be ready to learn and share information with other authorities on how to use this system."
Partnership as competitive advantage
Trembita's success rests partly on an unusual collaborative structure. Estonian technological expertise from Cybernetica combined with EU funding, Ukrainian implementation and the e-Governance Academy's coordination and expert consultation created something larger than any single partner could achieve. This arrangement required that all parties shared the fundamental goal of accelerating Ukraine's digital transformation and maintained clear divisions of labour.
"Cybernetica brought experience in implementing interoperability solutions," Kopytin explains. "The e-Governance Academy contributed vision. The Ministry of Digital Transformation handled documentation and legal frameworks. The state enterprise DIIA managed deployment. Great coordination between partners made us successful."
“Our partnership with Estonia is a prime example of how digital diplomacy creates real-world impact," says Yuriy Turiy. "We are sincerely grateful to our Estonian colleagues for not just sharing their 'X-Road' DNA, but for standing by us as true partners. This is more than a technical collaboration; it’s a shared leap toward a paperless future”.
Looking ahead
Ukraine's ambitions haven't stalled with this achievement. The next phase involves integrating artificial intelligence into government service delivery. The Ministry has already introduced chat interfaces in its web portal with mobile versions coming soon. "We are moving to what is called an agentic state," Turiy explains, "adjusting our government to work with new tools that AI brings."
Simultaneously, Ukraine is implementing UXP-based Personal Data Access Monitoring solution, which will make data exchanges visible to citizens. This push toward transparency and citizen awareness represents a philosophical evolution: not just making services digital, but making them intelligible and accountable. Looking further ahead, integration with European data exchange systems through the Once Only Technical System (OOTS) opens possibilities for cross-border service delivery. For a country rebuilding in wartime and integrating with Europe, it represents proof that digital government infrastructure, thoughtfully designed and strategically implemented, can be resilient, scalable, and transformative. When asked what aspects of the collaboration he's most proud of, Turiy points not to transaction volumes but to stability.
Trembita proved its resilience during wartime, when so much else faltered, matters more than any statistic. Kopytin highlights the ecosystem of learning that has emerged: regular trainings for new members, knowledge-sharing across organisations and continuous institutional improvement.
These metrics, not typically celebrated in technology narratives, reflect something deeper: the transformation of infrastructure into civic possibility. Trembita enabled Ukraine's government to serve citizens better during the most challenging period in its modern history. It allowed services to persist when centralised systems would have failed. It created a foundation upon which future innovations, including AI-driven services, can be built.
As Ukraine approaches the milestone of making 100% of public services available online, Trembita stands not as a destination but as a platform for ongoing transformation. For a country rebuilding in wartime and integrating with Europe, it represents proof that digital government infrastructure and thoughtfully designed and strategically implemented can be resilient, scalable, and transformative. The numbers matter. The partnerships matter. But perhaps most of all, the commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation ensures that Trembita will remain essential not just to Ukraine's government, but to its citizens' daily lives.