War

This post is not about outstanding business leaders. It’s about something completely different – the war, that started in Ukraine on 24th February 2022 at 4:00 AM after the Russian army invaded my country.

I’ve stayed anonymous since starting this blog, but I don’t see a reason for that anymore. My name is Maksym (Max) Sirous and until recently I was based in Kyiv, Ukraine, working at a local family office as an analyst. Since the war started, I moved my family (my wife and my 4 y/o son) to western Ukraine which is a safe place at the moment. Right now, Kyiv like a lot of other Ukrainian cities is being indiscriminately shelled by the Russian army. This has already resulted in countless casualties, destruction of infrastructure and humanitarian crisis in many regions of the country.

Leaving Kyiv was a hard decision for us but family safety was a top priority so we had to hastily abandon our home and move to the west. First, we moved to Vinnitsya which is 3 hours on train from Kyiv, later we decided to move to Ternopil which is 250 km from Vinnitsya to the west. I also took my parents from Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. They are currently with us in Ternopil.

At the moment men aged 18-60 y/o can’t leave the country due to martial law so I’m staying in Ukraine and trying to help those in need. My wife Nadia refused to go abroad so we are staying together.

Make no mistake, I’m writing this not to complain, my situation is infinitely better than of those people who are still staying in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy or Mariupol. In many cases these people lack basic necessities - food, water, heat, electricity and are at constant risk of being killed by Russian bombs or missiles.

What I would ask you to do – please help refugees, those who have lost everything overnight and had to move to the west with their children just to survive. There have been 2m refugees from Ukraine so far (most of them are going to Poland, huge thanks to our Polish friends) and this number will likely grow in the coming weeks.

I would also like to thank all people who have contacted me and offered help – most of them have never met me and know me from my twitter account @breadcrumbsre – the world is not without good people and these challenging times proved this once again.

I have no plans for the future – the situation is changing too fast to make any plans. Will try to keep you posted on this situation.

Max