KYIV, Jan 12, 2026, 15:17 EET
Kyivstar launched a 5G test zone in the western city of Lviv on Monday, the company’s first local pilot of the next-generation mobile network in Ukraine. It plans to extend testing to Kharkiv near the Russian border and to Borodianka outside Kyiv, with pilots in Kyiv and Odesa later in 2026. “While the enemy is trying to destroy our infrastructure, we continue to modernize,” digital transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Telegram. (Reuters)
The move matters because Ukraine’s networks keep running under missile attacks and power cuts, and operators are trying to harden systems while demand for mobile data rises. 5G, short for fifth-generation mobile service, can carry more data and cut delays compared with 4G, which still does most of the heavy lifting.
Ukraine had planned to roll out 5G nationwide in 2022, before Russia’s February 2022 invasion froze the timetable. Officials have kept pushing digital services as part of a wider reform drive and a bid to join the European Union.
The Lviv test zone sits in the city’s historic centre and is meant to check how the network performs under real urban conditions, Kyivstar’s parent VEON said. Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov said the operator was “driving Ukraine’s digital transformation with investments in advanced technologies”. VEON said Kyivstar plans to invest $1 billion in Ukraine in 2023–2027, including in energy back-up for its network and work on a Ukrainian large language model — software trained on large volumes of text to generate responses. (Veon)
For now, Kyivstar is calling it a test, not a commercial launch, and it has not set a date for nationwide 5G service. The company has said a broader roll-out will only be considered once the war ends.
In the pilot, 5G will use two frequency bands — slices of radio spectrum used for wireless signals — at 3,500 megahertz for higher speeds and 700 megahertz for wider coverage, the company said. During pre-launch tests in Lviv it recorded peak download speeds above 2.4 gigabits per second, while cautioning real-world performance could vary with congestion and conditions. Kyivstar said it serves more than 22.5 million mobile customers and over 1.2 million fixed-line home internet users as of Sept. 30, 2025. (Nasdaq)
Ukraine’s digital ministry said it kicked off the Lviv pilot with all three of the country’s main operators: Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine and lifecell. Vodafone Ukraine CEO Olga Ustinova called it “not an experiment, but a model proven by Vodafone’s experience in Europe,” and lifecell CEO Mykhailo Shelemba flagged energy resilience, saying: “Everything will depend on the reserve power supply,” while noting 5G phones make up about 29% of users on his network. (Developing Telecoms)
But the war remains the big constraint. Operators have warned that 5G draws more power than 4G, and outages can turn network upgrades into a logistics test: batteries, generators, fuel and repairs.
Even if the pilot runs smoothly, uptake will hinge on handset availability and how long the energy system stays under pressure. Kyivstar has pointed to Kharkiv and Borodianka as the next test locations, with Kyiv and Odesa planned later in 2026, but it has also said full-scale deployment is tied to the war’s outcome.
