Yuriy Kaminovskyy is 30 years old and is the CEO and co-founder of the Ukrainian software start-up Lionwood. Since the beginning of the war, he has sheltered several hundred refugees in his office in Lviv and provided the Ukrainian army with food and bulletproof vests. He has been training to become a soldier for around a month. The Handelsblatt has been in contact with him for several months.
i am a sniper During military training, I sit in one place for two days with no food and no sleep. The Ukrainian soldiers monitor it, we rehearse under real conditions. As a sniper, you must be vigilant. I’m often told, “Find these people and kill them.” It’s hard to locate people more than a kilometer away.
More training sessions follow two days later. We learn to treat injured comrades medically or to clean our weapons. Other training groups – I saw it in my video – are learning to fight with a knife. War material is still scarce. In Mariupol, our army uses the weapons of the killed Russian soldiers. The Ukrainian army is not that strong. Russia has been at war with other countries for more than 20 years, they have more experience.
“The accommodation is not made for normal life”
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Before the government drafted me into military service, I thought it was going to be tough. Physically it is too – it’s damn hard. But once you understand what you’re fighting for, it becomes bearable.
It’s really cool that we’re training. I made friends in the army. It doesn’t matter what you did before the war – everyone is equal in the military. Luckily I’ve done a lot of sport over the past ten years, so I can deal with the physical strain. But the fear remains. We never know if and when the Russian troops will attack our training camp. There are several bomb alerts every day.
Kaminovskyy’s company, Lionwood, and its employees donate thousands of dollars each day for food and clothing.
(Photo: Lionwood)
Then we hide. If we’re more than two kilometers from the barracks, we hide out on the ground. If we are close enough to the house, we entrench ourselves there. Accommodation is not made for normal living. It’s cold, especially when we train in the forest. We change location every five days because we have to learn to fight inside and outside the city.
New business locations in Poland and Spain
I’m not allowed to tell anyone where they’re sending me, not even my wife or my brother. Because if the Russians find out the location of the training centers, they will send rockets and kill us. This happened to 200 comrades in Lviv. There are thousands of training centers in Ukraine. In the pre-war period, almost 3,000 men received military training at one location – now we are 100. The reason is simple: if a unit is attacked, the loss for the Ukrainian army is smaller.
>> Read about this: Ukrainian IT companies at war against Putin
Right now I’m home on home leave working at my company, Lionwood. We joke, my colleagues say I have two jobs. Business is good, despite the war. We are very busy, we hire new software developers every day. We recently opened additional locations in Poland and Spain.
Some of our female team members have gone there, the new employees start directly there. Our local customers supported us in setting up the offices. Some of the employees who have not left the country sleep with their families here in the office. Food and petrol are becoming scarce again. Because normally about 700,000 people live in Lviv, now there are more than a million.
“I’m not afraid to die, but I’m afraid my son will never see me again”
I don’t know when I’ll be called to the next training session. The phone could ring at any moment. All I know is that it lasts 18 days – so far they have lasted between five and ten days. The hybrid system of government is smart. It states that soldiers should be sent home regularly in addition to their work in the military so that they can pursue their original work there.
The economy is devastated, Ukraine loses billions of dollars every year. We have to keep adding value. If we don’t export any products, then we don’t get any money either. The government understood: we need soldiers and money.
My wife and son will be leaving for Europe in the next few days. I send them to Spain or Italy, the countries are far enough from the war. Our neighboring countries are not safe because the Russian media are spreading rumors that they supposedly support us. The two will take the car, luckily I still have fuel for 500 kilometers. Many Ukrainians share the same fate, our wives cry every day. I’m not afraid of being killed, but I’m afraid my son will never see me again. He’s just one year old.
More: From entrepreneur to refugee helper: “3000 people lived in my office”