Hi Bakers,
I know Chris has his hands more than full, but I can share some of the experiences that I’ve had over the last week. I have 12 Ukrainian teammates on my team and work with dozens more in different capacities and functions at SoftServe. This is such a horrible atrocity and no one there will be unaffected. I never expected that I would be having a 1:1 with a co-worker where I told him goodbye possibly for the last time before he sent his family away on a train to safety in Poland and he went to pick up a helmet and gun to defend Kyiv. Another teammate said he wouldn’t be useful fighting, so he feels it’s his duty to keep the projects going and the customers happy so was making a code release from a bomb shelter to keep the Ukrainian economy working. The Ukrainians have a very strong pride in their culture and their country and from my teammates, they see no reason to surrender until there are no more Ukrainians and Ukraine has been burned to the ground.
While the world has been amazed by the dedication and capability of the people of Ukraine, I have gotten to experience it first hand for the last 3 years. Seeing people step up to meet the situation, with bravery and level-headedness that they have a job and a duty to do and they will do it. Over half my team is currently working on humanitarian projects in the west of Ukraine (Lviv) to distribute food, water, and medicine to people in other cities, and also to find rooms and shelter for the massive number of Ukrainians fleeing to the west of the country. What has been really impressive is that my Polish teammates have also stepped right up to the plate– helping shuttle families from the border into the cities of Poland. My teammate in Poland has adopted another teammate’s Ukrainian family at their house because under Marshall Law, men 18-60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine. The other thing to see is how SoftServe was able to reassign people and join into efforts to help coordinate movement of people, chartering buses to get teammates and their families out of the cities in the east, and help relocate people to safety.
After this first week, it seems that there is still a lot left in this war, and it will not be over in the next few days, and Ukraine will need the world’s help in order to keep their freedom. It seems that Kyiv and Kharkiv are where the biggest fights and most destruction is currently concentrated so far and western cities of Lviv, Ivano Frankivsk, and Chernivtsi are relatively safe.
I hope to one day be half the human that my Ukrainian and Polish colleagues have demonstrated they are.
Regards,
Shaun