MobiDev Employees Recount Their Stories about the War in Ukraine

                        (*Kharkiv Regional State Administration after Russian Bombing*)

Normally we publish articles by MobiDev’s experts about tech innovations and business use cases in software development, but this story will be about people, who found themselves in the middle of a war.

On February 24th, Thursday, MobiDev employees woke up at 5 AM — Ukraine was attacked by Russia. Since that moment everyone has their own story to tell.

Full stories of MobiDev employees can be found here.

“With shaking hands we started to call our relatives, lying on the bathroom floor because it was the safest place during the bombing. During the next 24 hours my family and I stayed in the metro station, using it as a bomb shelter. We were sleeping on the freezing floor with our sleeping pads and blankets. After the sleepless nights when we came back home, it was clear that we had to run away, ”

— remembers Iryna Gurskaya, BA Team Leader at MobiDev.

It was not that everyone started to evacuate immediately. It took about a week for Danil Yaylo and his family before they decided to relocate.

“On the 7th day of the war they started dropping banned bombs on the city. The road out of the city was very slow because of a traffic jam, but after 4 hours we came to a safe place, ”

— that was the turning point for Danil when his family decided to move.

For Julia Ramyalg, Marketing Team Lead at MobiDev, that morning started with unexplainable anxiety:

“I woke up my kids trying to speak as calmly as possible. I called my mum asking her to come to my home. For the next few hours we were sitting in the hall between two concrete walls in my apartment, and waiting for something. ”

Julia later remembers that having spent a few hours at the metro as a shelter, there was only one right decision — to take her family, and her dog before fleeing Kharkiv.

The first two weeks were the hardest for the work organization as the general situation was quite unpredictable, but most employees were relocated to safety and even in the first days, 65% kept on working.

MobiDev people acted to battle the enemy — some of our guys joined the troops, others were donating to the Army, and a lot of voluntary activities were launched within the company’s community. In their turn, clients almost immediately addressed AMs asking for ways to help and support Ukraine with real action.

In parallel, as a part of a business contingency plan, MobiDev was organizing evacuation buses from Kharkiv. The whole crew of IT professionals has provided a safe journey for more than 70 people from Kharkiv to Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

Sadly, this attack is not the first attempt by Russia to invade Ukraine. Back in 2014, Russia attacked Ukraine and occupied part of our territory (the Crimean Peninsula and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions). At that time it was really unexpected, but Ukraine managed to stop the invasion and localized the conflict to those near-border regions.

While Russia wages a war against Ukraine, most countries, businesses, and ordinary people stand with Ukraine. Nana Hrytsenko, Marketing Agent at MobiDev, is grateful for a huge response:

“We are extremely lucky to have friends all over the world, who immediately started to ask what’s going on and how they can help. Actually, I’m safe in Poland at the moment — my friends provided me with everything I need.”

Today most MobiDev employees have moved to the company’s offices in Chernivtsi and Lodz (Ukraine and Poland respectively). Some went to other safe locations across Ukraine and Europe. And they are already back at work.

It’s just a matter of time until Ukraine wins this war, but at the moment what adds up to the success of the Ukrainian battle is the help of other countries. Like many other businesses, MobiDev warriors support the economic defense of the country, supplying the Ukrainian Army and volunteers with much-needed items.

This is possible due to the continual and stable cooperation with our clients. This attitude really uplifted MobiDev teams, because, for us, such moves are a sign of trust and solidarity. The Ukrainian nation is united as never before and the support of other countries means the world to us!