Since 2014, the face of Ukrainian business has changed beyond recognition. Today its representatives form part of the country’s new elite and stand before challenges and opportunities unlike anything seen before.
There are two reasons that fundamentally drove this transformation. The first is time, enough of it has passed for a new generation to emerge, one free from Soviet-era thinking. I call them the people of a new Ukraine: people who grew up, took shape, and built themselves within an entirely different, independent consciousness.
These are self-made entrepreneurs — people who became who they are through curiosity and ambition, not because they managed to grab a piece of some asset during the collapse of the vast state machine called the USSR. Their background and their values are cut from different cloth.
The second reason is that these people lived through the most turbulent and dramatic chapter in modern Ukrainian history. First the Revolution of Dignity, then the start of the war in 2014, then COVID, and now the full-scale invasion.
In my view, this didn’t simply reshape business strategy — it reshaped the psychology of Ukrainian business at a fundamental level. A new, distinct breed of entrepreneur emerged: people with a deep patriotic consciousness, capable of surviving and growing in spite of any circumstances.
This is precisely what makes today’s entrepreneurs far closer to a genuine Ukrainian elite than the businesspeople of previous generations. Why? Because in times of crisis, aggression, and existential threat, they didn’t think only of themselves, they demonstrated the ability to work for the good of the country. Faced with a national emergency of this scale, business didn’t merely keep running; it consciously stepped up to support the country. And when you think beyond yourself, beyond your own company, that is the mark of an elite. An elite always ties its own success to the success of its country. The dramatic events of the past ten years forged a new generation of Ukrainian entrepreneurs — more patriotic, more pro-Ukrainian, and more accountable than any before them.
The military and volunteers have noticed it too: since the full-scale invasion began, Ukrainian business has become essentially a volunteer force, channeling enormous energy into supporting the country and the army. As a result, public attitudes toward entrepreneurs have grown more positive — though the prevailing view still tends to lump businesspeople together with politicians and officials who profit from nothing. The so-called capitalists. This is partly a problem of business itself, which does relatively little to improve its own public image. But it is also the result of deliberate state policy — one that actively discredits business while steadily tightening the pressure on it.
People see this and form negative impressions accordingly, even as Ukrainian business today is the first volunteer in line, effectively paying a triple tax: the official tax to the state; a systematic voluntary defense contribution that includes regular support for the army and various units; and yet another voluntary payment to support the families of employees killed in the war. That last obligation should fall entirely on the state, but business has voluntarily taken it on. The war has dealt a sharp and severe blow to how entrepreneurs operate, and to offset that, the state should be reducing pressure, granting more freedom, and cutting through regulation. So far, none of that has happened.
However, new Ukrainian entrepreneurs are exactly the kind of people who are ready for any scenario and capable of surviving under any conditions. Every crisis, every upheaval, opens new horizons in its wake. From what I see, business has several major opportunities ahead, and they will only grow:
1. Going global. For the first time in our history, we have genuine access to Western markets, nearly 50% of global GDP. This is a serious opportunity to attract new partners and investors, and with them, hundreds of billions of dollars for Ukraine.
2. Open niches with relatively weak competition. There are plenty of them across various sectors right now, as many businesses, including foreign ones, couldn’t withstand the pressures brought on by the full-scale war and have exited Ukraine.
3. Ukraine’s large-scale reconstruction. One way or another, it will happen in the decade following the end of the war. It will most likely be the largest economic undertaking in the world since the Second World War — involving major donors, massive investment, and broad development. The businesses that survive and prepare for it will have the chance to become a driving force of change and secure their own growth for decades to come.
Source: "LIGA NET" news portal.