Victor Zhora, the deputy chief of Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection told Reuters his department was planning for a contingency, but that it is being considered at all suggests Ukrainians want to be ready for any Russian threat to seize sensitive government documents.

However, the move could only happen after regulatory changes approved by Ukrainian lawmakers, Zhora said.

Government officials have already been shipping equipment and backups to more secure areas of Ukraine beyond the iron fist of Tsar Putin who invaded on 24 February and is laying siege to several cities.

Last month Zhora told Politico there were plans to move critical data out of the capital Kyiv should it be threatened, but preparations for potentially moving data abroad go a step further. Ukraine has received offers to host data from a variety of countries, Zhora said, declining to identify them. For reasons of proximity "a European location will be preferred," he said.

Past efforts to keep government data out of Russia's grasp involved either the physical transport of servers and removable storage devices or the digital migration of data from one service or server to another. Government agencies would have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to keep their operations running inside the country or evacuate them.

Russia possessing Ukrainian government databases and intelligence files could be helpful if Russia wanted to control Ukraine.