[olkyts]

Ukrainian here staying in Ukraine the whole time. Not a developer, working in a senior management role, but still heavily relied on the internet and electricity. Totally understand the reasons why your employee doesn't want to move out of the country.

I assume that she lives not in Enerhodar (which is occupied). Then only 2 possible locations, and they are pretty safe. According to western and Ukrainian analysts, massive scale attack from Belarus is impossible right now. And the possibility of Russians moving to the right bank of Dnipro is very-very distant right now. The only 2 problems are: missile strikes and infrastructure failures. So the comments here that generators or satellite internet will make her a target is nonsense. Missiles are too expensive to target each household with a generator.

So next I share what I did and what works for me: 1. Moved with my family to a distant small village in central Ukraine (Vinnytsia region), where we don’t rely on central heating and water supply. The only network we are connected to is eletricity. Life here is very cheap. We bought a house for $3000 and paid around $10k to make it convenient for us (shower / toilet, water, heating). Today there were 5 strikes heard - the attack was on Ladyzhyn electricity station 30 minutes drive from us. Living in even small city makes people dependent on central heating systems and water supply. Living in private house makes you more independent. If your employee doesn’t want to move somewhere to Europe or western Ukraine maybe she can rent a house in a village near her city like 20—40 minutes drive. It will give her flexibility not to rely on central systems, visit friends and family in the city, and no sirens heard here, never! And event in such a village we have access to quite good healthcare / dentists / and buying local food. 2. We use our own heating 3. Ordered starlink. For Ukrainians it’s very long to wait it, so my relatives from Belgium helped ordered to their address and sent it here. Maybe you can help your employee with logistics delivering satellite kit to her. Again starlink in remote village works better than in the city because sky is clear. In the city if she lives in apartments it will be hard to install it. 4. I bought a portable power station. It’s enough for me to work for a couple of days and to power refrigerator. But during the war there was never more than 4 hours without electricity here. I bought it before massive strikes on infrastructure. Nowadays they are in deficit. So again you can help her with logistics buying somewhere in Europe and delivering to Ukraine. My friend from Sweden helped me to buy power station for my parents and sent it in Ukraine. 5. What I need right now is a generator. They are in deficit here. But my relatives in Belgium are helping with it delivering it here. Moreover Ukrainian government cancelled all taxes / customs on generators and power stations, so it became even more accessible in terms of price. The only problem is logistics. Sorry for bad English.

Edit: Even today after massive strike we didn’t had electricity for like 4 hours. My parents live in Kyiv and it’s much worse there - no electricity and water and even cell connection for the whole day. So my point is basically to stay away from large cities, because they are more vilnerable

[ivan_gammel]

Thank you! This is really helpful. Are there any logistics issues we need to consider if we send her some hardware from Germany?

[olkyts]

Basically there several options in EU zone: 1. There are drivers (mostly Ukrainians) on small shuttles that regularly carry passengers and packages from Belgium through Germany and Romania to Western Ukraine. When they come to Ukraine drivers send packages through local post services (Nova Poshta or Meest Express) to people around Ukraine. There are lots of such shuttles. The problem is to find someone reliable. My relatives in Belgium claim to know reliable driver. Not sure which cities he goes through in Germany when going to Ukraine. 2. There is Meest Express, which has warehouses in Germany and Poland. You can order something from say Amazon to their warehouse and they will deliver it to any place in Ukraine. It’s a more expensive options. 3. Lot’s of people going between EU and Ukraine, but it’s not an option for you, because you have to know people. You can ask your employee - most probably some of her relatives and friends went to EU as refugees. Some people return, some are volunteers that go back and forth carrying humanitarian and military air.

Just pack the hardware very carefully.