He literally said the following: in Ukraine, China could potentially have access to 80-90% of the cameras. According to the IT businessman, this applies not only to conventional video surveillance, but also to cameras on reconnaissance drones, which poses a direct threat to security during war. Allegedly, there have already been cases when the Russians intercepted the control of Ukrainian drones.

In addition, Alexander Kardakov named a Chinese manufacturer whose technology, in his opinion, creates additional risks. This is the company Hikvision.

If Mr. Kardakov’s fears are justified, then this is literally a «jackpot» for our security. The capital’s Kyiv Smart City project, for example, was built on the same Hikvision cameras. As of 2020, about 7,000 such cameras were installed in Kyiv.

And of course, these weren’t just any cameras, they were smart cameras. They perform a variety of tasks, from recognizing license plates and faces to monitoring security in city schools and kindergartens.

In other words, if China has a backdoor, it can see a lot on the streets of the capital. And not only in the capital. Hikvision is the most popular video surveillance system in Ukraine

In my opinion, Kardakov is not without reason citing examples of international experience: In the US, Hikvision and Dahua equipment is included in the FCC Covered List — this is an unacceptable risk to national security, and in the UK, sensitive facilities are prohibited from deploying surveillance systems from companies that fall under Chinese intelligence legislation.

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I haven’t seen similar Ukrainian practices (approaches, documents). Although we are at war, and they should have appeared.

Far from just cameras

In fact, the problem raised by Alexander Kardakov is only the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately.

China, as a very active supplier of equipment, has (or may have) remote access to many other critical systems in Ukraine.

The same new batteries at mobile operators' base stations are usually Chinese-made and have remote control. If we fantasize further and assume that the manufacturer has the ability to control them, the situation could be fatal.

For example, during blackouts, batteries are disconnected and mobile communications are down throughout the city.

By the way, most of the base stations of our mobile operators are manufactured by Huawei and ZTE. Most of the smartphones in the networks are also from China — Xiaomi, Huawei, Meizu, etc.

Let’s move on. Energy equipment: Ecoflow, Bluetti, Deye. These are bestsellers in Ukraine, which keep electricity in our homes during the energy crisis. They are all Chinese. Almost all of them have an Internet connection.

Thus, China, as a supplier of equipment, can have a huge impact on our lives. Does it use possible backdoors? And are they on all the equipment I listed — you never know.

But the potential impact is enormous. And, in my opinion, underestimated.

Only one country, besides China, has more tech influence on Ukraine — the USA. The States control the largest payment systems — Visa, Mastercard. The States control the cloud — AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google. The States control AI — Open AI (ChatGPT), Anthropic (Claude), Gemini. The USA has the largest play markets Appstore and Play Market. Our access to satellites (SpaceX — Starlink) depends on America.

All of these are points of influence: on security, on the economy, on politics, on personal life.

One way or another: we are now very dependent on China and the US in terms of technology. And in most cases, we have no alternative.
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