Shopping Mall Retroville, Kyiv, Ukraine, after being bombed by Russian Armed Forces, 20 March 2022
“We are here. Our military are here. Citizens and society are here. We are all here defending Ukraine.” — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, February 26, 2022
Wednesday February 23, 2022 seemed to be a day like any other. Oleksiy Gulevych, 37, and his wife Olesya were at the offices of JANDA, a specialized high-tech clothing manufacturing and retailing company they started together in Kyiv in 2016.
Janda develops, produces, and sells children's winter clothes. Their limited edition collections of outerwear are comparable to Columbia Sportswear, manufactured using Hipora (a Gore-Tex-like breathable fabric that consists of a three-layer microporous coating structure) and Thinsulate (an insulation material developed by 3M) to remain waterproof and hold body heat while wicking moisture to prevent sweating. Oleksiy holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s in economics and serves as CEO and COO. Olesya oversees design. At year-end 2021, they employed 10 people—tailors, a cutter, salesmen, managers, and a technologist—and produced and shipped approximately 2,000 pieces of clothing a year.
Rumblings of an unprovoked attack on Ukraine had begun circulating in late 2021, and as concerns about impending war grew more distinct, foreign embassies, including the U.S. diplomatic mission, started to withdraw from Ukraine to protect their staff.
While each day brought new credible reports that Russia was amassing troops and preparing to mount a full-scale military assault, most Ukrainian citizens didn’t believe the Kremlin would launch bombs and missiles at their peaceful nation and civilian population.
At dawn on Thursday February 24th, life as Oleksiy and Olesya knew it ended.
A searing first-person account of harrowing realities
The Ukrainian people are victims of an abhorrent morally reprehensible injustice; their plight is heartbreaking. Like many Americans and other people around the world, I was moved to help. As an advisor whose work focuses on assisting leaders to effectively contend with the psychological and emotional challenges, stresses, hardships, and anxieties of leadership and to navigate mission-critical issues that are also inseparable from who they are as a person, I felt compelled to volunteer my services to Oleksiy and Olesya.
Over the past two months, I’ve had regular conversations with Oleksiy and Olesya by Zoom. They both speak fluent English. We were introduced by my professional colleague, Martin Kenney. Kenney is the Founding and Managing Partner of Martin Kenney Solicitors, a litigation firm based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) specializing in global investigations and asset recovery in serious fraud and grand corruption matters. His wife Yuliya is Oleksiy’s sister.
What follows is Oleksiy’s searing first-person account of his and his family’s experiences and the brutal impact to their business since February. He wrote this statement in his native Ukrainian then translated it into English before sharing it with me on August 14. It has been lightly edited for clarity and flow, but his idiomatic syntax and word usage is otherwise intact.
Oleksiy’s powerful narrative brings us inside the realities of harrowing circumstances most people will, hopefully, never experience. He offers important lessons around leadership in trauma and high-stakes decision-making useful to everyone in positions of responsibility and influence.
Where many entrepreneurs and chief executives characteristically wall off or conceal vulnerabilities, his openness and expressivity about his anxieties and fears—which are situationally far beyond the realm of crisis business leaders typically face—and composure under extreme duress point to a host of psychological traits more leaders would do well to develop and emulate.
His ability to connect to his deep love and care for his wife, children, parents, and faith, and the swirl of intense emotions around potentially losing everything dear, including his home, business, and even homeland, while making life and death choices to survive under siege are likewise exceptional capacities to unpack and study. These are too often eclipsed in the literature on leadership by valentines to conventionally normalized strengths and competencies that form the typical leadership profile but which, in truth, sidestep, compromise, and block empathy, resilience, and a host of other qualities conducive to potent, moral leadership.
Given the length of Oleksiy’s narrative, which is too important to truncate and should be read in its entirety, commentary on those leadership issues will come in Part 2 of this article (to be published soon).
But even before anyone reads the second installment, Oleksiy and his family and employees are in Kyiv battling for survival. In an email, Oleksiy reminds me that August 24, 2022 (the day this article is published) is Ukrainian Independence Day. He wrote, “we pray because the russians want to congratulate our beautiful Ukraine with a lot of bombs.” Information about how to help them appears at the end.
The flames of war devour everything
I’m Oleksiy Gulevych, Ukrainian, originally from Kyiv. I am 37 years old, a believer in God. I have two advanced degrees. My wife's name is Olesya, she also has two advanced degrees. One of them is a designer.
We live in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. A city where about 4 million people live and work. It is an economically and financially developed city.
Most people have higher education, most are literate and well-educated. Every other person has an iPhone 13, and many people drive a Mercedes, BMW or Audi.
Many people have their own businesses. It is a modern city with many modern buildings and houses. It is a beautiful, well-kept and clean city, which is more than 1,500 years old.
Talks about a repeated barbaric attack on Ukraine, by russia (we intentionally write it with a small letter as a sign of disrespect) began three months before the start of the war.
Since the end of 2021, diplomatic missions of other countries began to leave Ukraine to save their staff.
One of the first to leave Ukraine was the U.S. diplomatic mission.
Every day there was news about the strengthening of russian troops and the emergence of a military grouping in the territory of belarus.
No one in Ukraine could conceive of launching huge bombs and missiles at a peaceful city and just at civilian population. Today, in the 21st century. And this decision can be made by one person—putin (we use a small letter with his name too, to show our disrespect). We don’t want to take bad news seriously. After all, we haven't experienced or seen war, explosions, murders.
For those 3 months—December 2021, and January and February 2022—before the outbreak of hostilities, we led normal, peaceful lives. We planned our work, made plans to travel.
But the whole time there was a very restless feeling inside. Many friends packed an anxious suitcase and were constantly reading the news. You wake up and go to sleep with the news. And every night you wake up and watch the news on your phone while all is quiet ...
All this time we have been living on a powder keg, waiting for the worst to happen, but believing in a miracle that everything will turn out okay.
It didn't.
24.02.2022
It so happened that I had to pick up a relative from the train station at 05:30 a.m. It was my wife's uncle. He had come to Kyiv on business and asked for a ride to a town ten kilometers away.
I came out of the apartment at 05:10 a.m., it was still dark outside and very quiet. I went to the car and heard two bangs. The sound was like a firecracker going off, but very far away. Very muffled sound.
I got in the car and drove to the train station. There was a very uneasy feeling inside, something must be happening. At 05:20 a.m. I couldn't stand it and called my wife. She was asleep with our 10 year-old and 1.5 year-old baby and I thought she would not hear such an early call. But she answered and said all is quiet.
Our apartment building is adjacent to a forest. We live on the 23rd floor from which there is a very beautiful view of the forest and a lake. And there, somewhere in the distance,100 km from our home, is the border with belarus, from where one of the attacks on Ukraine was carried out. And just 15 km from our house is the town of Bucha (about the atrocities in which the whole world will know in April 2022). But more about that later.
At 05:40a.m. I arrived at the train station. I met my uncle. At that time I read on the news that russia had attacked. Nothing was clear yet and everyone thought that russia continued its offensive in the Donetsk direction (east), which is 1000 km from Kyiv.
So he and I drove out of town. At 06:00 I dropped him off and drove back, hurrying to my wife and kids. At that time a lot of cars were already leaving Kyiv. Such a large number could be seen only in the rush hour traffic jams. And this I remind you at 06:00a.m. People had already begun to flee the war.
At 06:05a.m. my wife called. She was awakened by the explosions. Her voice was shaking. She was crying and stuttering. Through the window she saw bombs exploding. At one point she saw a very strong explosion, shaped like a mushroom from a nuclear explosion. But thank God - it was not a nuclear explosion. The house shook violently after each explosion, and the children were very frightened and cried with her.
Of my parents, I have only my mother, who also lives in Kyiv. Her house was on the road to my house. I called her and told her she had 20 minutes to get ready. On the way to her I kept hearing pops and explosions. The adrenaline was off the scale and it felt like driving through a minefield. With a good imagination, I knew that at any moment a missile or bomb could hit any house or car. And no one was safe from that. A feeling of helplessness and a prayer to God is what you feel at that moment. Even then I made a firm decision to leave Kyiv. To the unknown, somewhere in the direction of Western Ukraine. Away from the war.
I went to my mother's house, loaded her things into the car and drove after my wife, children, and wife's mother (she was just visiting us).
When we arrived, it was already about 7:00a.m. The courtyard was bustling, lots of neighbors were carrying suitcases and loading them into cars, children cried.
The first problem I discovered was that the elevators were off. It's one thing to climb up 23 floors and another to bring down children and suitcases. It seemed that the stairs would never end. There were crying children, and women and men with suitcases going up and down.
When I reached the 23rd floor I had no strength, my throat was dry and I was short of breath. And in front I was to carry more suitcases. As a grown-up man I wanted to cry, just from the powerlessness. But there was good news: I saw my wife and children alive and unharmed.
We took everything we could carry in the car as we knew we probably wouldn't be going back. Then I picked up the first suitcase, it weighed 30 kilograms. The second time I felt like crying with helplessness. I don't remember how I got it down, but I guess it was on adrenaline and because I had been praying to God the entire way to carry it.
I loaded the suitcases into the car and then heard that some neighbors who had left earlier in their cars had started to return. Traffic jams and long lines for gasoline and ATMs had already formed in the city. Everyone suddenly decided to fill up their cars with gasoline and leave town.
As an economist, I already foresaw that something would probably happen. So for the last month I've been filling up a full tank of gas from the evening and withdrawing available cash. So at least there would be no problem with that.
When I got back to the basement, I prayed that the elevator would work. Because I had no strength left to go up to the 23rd floor on foot and carry things again.
And at that moment a miracle happened: the elevator started working and the doors opened.
Then we started to carry things. My wife is not very fast and I joked that when the tanks are shooting, it will still take her a long time to collect things. And so it happened; there were explosions outside the window and she was packing for a long time.
At 12:00 noon, we left the house - me, my mother, my wife, her mother, and the two children.
Going into the unknown
Shopping Mall Retroville, Kyiv, Ukraine, after being bombed by Russian Armed Forces, 20 March 2022
We didn't know where to go. We programmed a route on the navigator and there was traffic everywhere.
My mom asked me to stop by her house to pick up some more stuff. We got there and she got out of the car. My oldest son Danya, 10 years old, ran out after her. They were gone for 7 minutes and at that moment there was a very strong explosion. I had never heard such a force before, and it was somewhere close by. My heart ran in my heels because my mother and child were gone. I jumped out of the car and ran to the house they were in but thank God they came out in one piece and we drove on.
We got to a place where there were two exits out of town. The navigator showed there was heavy traffic, and at one point the exit was blocked. At the second exit, tanks began to move. (We found out later that people had been stuck in traffic for eight hours and had not been able to leave the city).
It took us three hours to get out of the city.
We left the city by country roads and stopped at a small village. We needed to buy groceries for the trip. I got out of the car. It was quiet. No explosions were heard. About 20 km behind me was Kyiv, which was being bombed. I thought that I could finally think a little bit about where to go next. We planned to go to Western Ukraine, closer to the border with Europe, away from russia. Earlier our friends had said it was very dangerous to go on the main highways and through the big cities, they would be bombed by the russians for more casualties. So it was necessary to plan a route on non-main roads. I went into the store and picked out some groceries. At that moment there was an explosion of such force that the walls of the store shook, and the women who were in the store began to scream. My heart sank in my heels as my wife, two children, and mothers were left in the car behind the closed door of the store. I opened the store door and what joy I had - the car was still there and they were all in one piece. There was no time to find out what had exploded. Explosions were also heard in the distance. I quickly got into the car and we drove away.
All the highways and roads were congested, all the people in cars were running away from the war, and we were driving at a very low speed on country roads. We drove 6 hours. It had long been dark, and the children were very tired and hungry. We were only 180 km away from Kyiv. Outside is February, winter, snow.
Many friends who left earlier and were already far from Kyiv complained that there were no more vacancies in hotels, and they cannot find a place to stay overnight.
So we decided to look for a place to stay in a small village. There was no room here either. We spent 1.5 hours to find a place. In one hotel we were allowed to sleep in the hall on chairs and a sofa. But we were not upset. We can keep warm and feed the children.
The news said that russia’s army decided to wipe Ukraine off the face of the Earth. russia used all of its newest weapons. Huge long-range missiles, bombs, planes, helicopters, tanks and armored personnel carriers were shooting civilians and all of Ukraine. A peaceful Ukraine that gave up the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in Europe as part of its disarmament. A peaceful Ukraine that did not attack anyone. Peaceful Ukraine, which security and non-aggression and protection were guaranteed by the U.S., Britain and russia.
Very sad feeling when you leave everything: your new, beautiful apartment, your business which you were building for many years. A lot of things you care about so much. Throwing everything into the unknown because the flames of war devour everything.
A choice to save children and lives
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a press conference regarding russia's attack on ... [+]
We made a choice to save children and lives. Not wait for the bomb, a rocket or a shell will land in an apartment.
The plan was to drive toward Poland. We ate and went to bed. But what kind of sleep can we talk about if such grief has occurred? The Internet is overflowing with photos of killed and maimed people without arms and legs. The news reported about constant shelling. And it is not localized in some far away military bases, it is right here in peaceful cities.
In the hotel we met people from all over Ukraine, all of them were fleeing from the war and all of them had already seen explosions, fires and deaths of innocent people.
The night passed very anxiously. The sound of the air-raid siren is very unpleasant. It penetrates to the bone and you have to immediately hide in the basement. We have been hearing this sound every day for 160 days.
The next morning, we hit the road. The route we took was on country roads. We decided not to take the main highways. The roads were congested with cars coming from all over eastern and southern Ukraine. In addition, there were a lot of military equipment traveling and we had to stop and let them pass.
By evening, we reached the first checkpoint on the border with Poland. There was a huge line of cars. And a lot of cars were turning around and leaving. We asked at the gas station where else we could cross the border, and the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyy was recommended to us. They said there were fewer people there. We went there. It was very late when we arrived. We decided to spend the night in the hotel. But there was the same situation as before - no room. After much persuasion, the children and women were allowed to stay and spend the night in the hallway. The men were not allowed. I stayed the night in the car, in winter. It was cold to sleep in winter clothes in the car. I had to save fuel. So I slept with the engine off. My wife told me that at night when the bomb siren would go off they would run into the basement with the little kids. They could not sleep properly. Constant stress and uncertainty about surviving.
The next morning we went to the border. But as it turned out, the queue was 15 km of cars. Approximate time of border crossing was 1.5 days. All this time we spent in the car - 4 adults and 2 children slept, ate, changed diapers. We were rescued by volunteers, and local residents who were handing out food on the road.
When the checkpoint with Poland was only 1 km away, we learned that an order of the Ukraine government was just issued not to let abroad men 18-60 years old. I had to stay in Ukraine. I persuaded my wife to take our children and go to a safe place, but she refused to leave me. At that moment there were explosions that made the car jump. There were three explosions in all. When you can't do anything on your own, you start praying to God. I prayed and wondered why we were being chased all the way by explosions. Why did we go so far away and it is a rough place here too? What a feeling of disappointment that all for nothing and so much time had been spent. There was no understanding of what to do next. After prayer, it was easier and I was sure it would be safe.
We drove back to the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyy. It was getting late and we needed a place to spend the night. My wife's mom called a pastor she knew and he recommended the Bethesda Ukrainian Pentecostal Church in that city. We called the local pastor, Oleksandr Tkachuk, and told him we needed help with the overnight stay. Ten minutes later we were on our way to the address where we could spend the night. We were welcomed by a believing woman, the mother of 5 grown children. Her two younger daughters lived with her. She had a small house on two floors and gave us the second floor. We had two bedrooms. But the bathroom and toilet were shared, so there were 9 of us using the same bathroom.
The next day, we were very warmly welcomed by Pastor Tkachuk and his congregants. They helped us in any way they could. But most importantly at the moment we left everything we had and didn't know if we were coming home or not. In one moment you don't own it anymore. It's one thing when you have a million dollars in your account and you can buy everything, you don't have to worry about anything. It's another thing when you drop everything and go into the unknown.
In church I had an opportunity to pray and find peace of mind. In general, with God there is confidence in the future, and most importantly, that everything will be okay. Many people from different cities of Ukraine came to this church. Everyone helped each other and the church, with its multitude of people, young and old, became one organism. It functioned like clockwork.
At the same time there was chaos all over Ukraine, cities were bombed every night and day. putin was plotting to assassinate our president Zelensky. Americans expected Ukraine's destruction and Zelensky's ouster for 3 days. They advised him to leave everything and run away from the country. But our president turned out to be a real warrior, who rallied the government and the people of Ukraine. Every evening he made a video address to the people and gave us hope for victory.
Coping with depression but somehow helping others
Bethesda Ukrainian Pentecostal Church community, Volodymyr-Volynskyy, Ukraine
Millions of people across Ukraine were left without homes or provisions. The church decided to help the needy and make canned goods. Almost every day we went to church. The pastor bought pigs with donations, cut them up, cooked onions and carrots over a fire, added porridge, and packed them into jars. Every day we made 1,000 cans of canned food. The canned goods were taken by volunteers to the most affected cities where stores were bombed and people had nothing to eat.
In this kind of work we were coping with depression and somehow helping others.
More and more people came to the church, and on the 18th day of the war, two men, brothers, from Mariupol arrived. The older one was 22 and the younger one was 19. Mariupol is a port city of 500,000 people in eastern Ukraine. As I write this, the russians have bombed it completely. Unofficially 100,000 people have died in just that one town. These brothers told how they were bombed. At first the missiles and shells were flying over their house. They were just flying over and they were watching it. Then the shells started hitting neighboring houses - windows and doors were broken. Electricity, gas, and water went out. People started dying. And neighbors began to bury the dead in the yards or in playgrounds. Then food disappeared from the city. Exploding shells, flying airplanes, and helicopters made people lose their minds. One neighbor used to go outside with her little daughter during the shelling and walk around when the bombs were exploding. Another neighbor would go out and sweep the street. Then a rocket flew into their house, too, and they decided to leave town. It was hard to do at the time, but a miracle happened and they left.
Later, the pastor made arrangements for humanitarian aid, and we had trucks of essential goods coming in from across the border. We unloaded the trucks and then unloaded the goods to volunteers in vans that took them to the affected towns, including Bucha.
If this feels like an abrupt ending, it is. This is where Oleksiy stopped writing.
But his story is not done yet.
A call to action
Help is on the way
Oleksiy’s priorities for Janda are in stark contrast to most business challenges: hoping nobody gets killed, that the offices and factory aren’t destroyed by a bomb or missile strike, traversing the instability and uncertainties of a war-time economy and fluctuating national defense needs, and keeping himself and his family and staff safe and sane despite the persistent anxiety, constant blare of air-raid sirens, and indignities of living under mortal threat.
All of that notwithstanding, there are still modest sales to regular customers along with the potential for resuming and even enhancing the e-commerce business despite supply, shipping, and export challenges.
Oleksiy knows that his company produces high-quality outerwear that’s attractive, well-liked and, especially with colder weather fast approaching, very useful. Customer feedback since the war began indicates that Janda-wear also provides additional unanticipated benefits. Displaced families and others forced into basements and shelters to escape the aerial bombarding are fleeing their homes only with what they can carry. They have few changes of clothes and no ability to do laundry. Children have no choice but to wear the same outfit repeatedly, and Janda’s clothes are durable, stay reasonably clean for long periods of time, and keep children warm without overheating. Who could’ve foreseen “war-resistant” as a product feature?
What’s needed now?
A philanthropic partner to contribute non-contingent finance to help sustain and re-build Janda within Ukraine. Even with war raging and the world blowing-up around him, Oleksiy is drawing plans for production and sales into 2023. These include developing small-scale manufacturing from a modest factory near Volodymyr-Volynskyy, temporarily until the situation in Kyiv is stable enough to resume full-scale operations, and reinvesting sales revenue to maintain operations and to diversify the design and fabrication of new winter product lines for adults.
Oleksiy’s reflex to help others despite his own dire situation is who he is. There are 1 million men fighting for Ukraine’s army, siphoning a sizeable population from its workforce. But not every citizen serves his country with a weapon. Oleksiy is one of Ukraine’s critical non-combatant resources—a highly educated, talented, and driven entrepreneur trying to do important work and provide for fellow Ukrainians who are suffering and struggling.
If you’re interested in helping Janda and the Gulevych family, please send an email to info[at]dolusadvisors.com.
JANDA: www.janda.com.ua
These are some well-established organizations accepting donations to help the people of Ukraine:
Armed Forces of Ukraine • Save Life • Army SOS • Phoenix Wings • International Committee of the Red Cross • Médecins Sans Frontières • International Rescue Committee • International Medical Corps • CARE • People In Need • Medical Fund Hospitallers
