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Most countries of the world are implementing e-government in everyday life. At the moment, the term e-government has a global status. The pioneers of its implementation were highly developed democratic countries, so the development of e-government went hand in hand with the development of e-democracy. At the beginning of e-government implementation, the hypothesis that its development would contribute to the democracy dominated. However, the successful experience of non-democratic countries such as China, the UAE, and others in implementing e-government requires a more detailed study of this issue, which is confirmed by the emergence of a number of publications that refute this statement.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the situation in Ukraine for several years before the start of full-scale Russian aggression based on international rankings on the e-government and democracy development.

The object of study: to test the hypothesis that the development of e-government will contribute to the democracy in Ukraine, which is known as a country of unstable democracy.

The study used the methods of comparative analysis of the indices of international ratings of democracy and e-government development in Ukraine for the period of 2016-2022.

The results obtained and their value make it possible to realize that e-government tools (technical means) should be perceived only as a tool in the hands of society, which is determined not so much by the breadth of coverage, but by the type of political regime of the country.

Since 2003, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) has been assessing the level of e-government development in 193 countries every two years. The E-Government Development Index (EGDI) is a composite index formed through a set of other sub-indices and is used to measure the capabilities of national governments in using information and communication technologies to provide information services to the public, businesses and government agencies. The EGDI ranking is based on three sub-indices: OSI (Online Service Index), an index of online services calculated by UNDESA; TII (Telecommunication Infrastructure Index), an index of telecommunication infrastructure calculated by the International Telecommunication Union; HCI (Human Capital Index), a human capital index calculated by UNESCO in cooperation with UNDP. Based on the results of the comparison of these indices in the specified period, the following statement follows. At the beginning of 2016, after a significant break (2012-2015, due to Russia's external interference in the processes of democratic transit), Ukraine started to implement e-government, but the progress slowed down and Ukraine dropped from 62nd to 82nd place in the EGDI ranking. As of the beginning of 2020, it moved from 69th place to 46th place in the ranking as of the beginning of 2022, which indicates significant progress in the implementation of e-government.

The most well-known and regularly updated democracy indices in the world are the GDI Democracy Index (developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit); the V-Dem Institute's Democracy Indices; the Bertelsmann Transformation Index by the Bertelsmann Foundation; and the International Institute for Democracy and Elections' Global Democracy Indices. Democracy indices differ in the scope and importance of various aspects of democracy, including the breadth of basic democratic institutions, freedom of expression, various aspects of governance, violations of democratic norms, manipulation of the electoral system, election fraud, government functioning, etc.

Our comprehensive analysis of the above indices clearly demonstrates that, in general, from the beginning of 2016 to the beginning of 2022, e-government (EGDI) in Ukraine has improved significantly (0.6076®0.8029), and the level of democracy (GDI) initially increased slightly (5.7®5.9). However, since the beginning of 2020, the GDI has been falling and, in general, has fallen below the level of early 2016 (5.9®5.57) by the beginning of 2022. That is, the restrictions associated with the suspension of public administration reforms due to the Covid-19 pandemic have been reflected and set Ukraine back 5 years in terms of promoting democratic values in government activities. Thus, there is no direct link between the introduction of e-government and the development of democracy in Ukraine in this period. This tendency has not been studied in other periods, so it requires additional research.