Ukrainian Diaries

This episode looks at how Ukrainian businesses are adapting to sustained attacks on logistics and retail infrastructure. The costs rising, delivery networks splitting, warehouses rebuilding for the second and third time. Alongside the behavioral reality of a population that can't put life on pause for an indefinite war and going to music festivals and symphony orchestra.

Two realities, running at full volume, simultaneously.

Topics: war economy, business resilience, human behavior, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read the full reflection here

an ethnic-electronic event on 8–9 August, Kyiv. Photo: “Vyrij” / Olga Zakrevska, Andriy Kharlamov
A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → https://www.ishkraba.com/

There are roughly 200 padel courts in Ukraine already, with more opening every month — in a country at war. That's not a contradiction. It's a business decision that makes more sense than it first appears.

This episode looks at why padel is booming in Kyiv right now: the economics (three courts fit in one tennis court's footprint), the psychology (ninety minutes of forced presence, in a city that needs it), and the investment logic of building a physical business where a rocket doesn't distinguish between a military target and a new court on Podil. Not recklessness. A particular kind of wartime pragmatism.

Topics: business decision-making, consumer behavior, investment risk, war economy, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read the full reflection here
A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → https://www.ishkraba.com/

Photo by Vincenzo Morelli 

Kvass has been around since Kyiv Rus — people in this city were drinking something close to it in the 9th century. Today it's a real seasonal retail category, and the brands winning at it aren't selling a drink. They're selling memory.

This episode traces kvass from the yellow street barrels of Soviet-era Kyiv to branded supermarket bottles today — and what it reveals about consumer behavior, cultural code, and why some products survive for a thousand years while others don't make it a decade. Not nostalgia. Just a very good product that traveled well through time.

Topics: consumer behavior, market trends, Ukrainian culture, branding, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read the reflection here
A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → https://www.ishkraba.com/

Photo by Bunyamin Enes Binmar on Unsplash

A prominent Ukrainian minister just stepped down from one of the country's most critical wartime roles. Everyone's talking politics. I want to talk about what's underneath it: the difference between a leader who creates momentum and one who builds a system that survives without them.

This episode looks at leadership succession and decision-making under wartime governance — through Ukraine's digital transformation, and what it means for CEOs and executives building organizations anywhere.

Topics: leadership succession, decision-making, executive leadership, wartime governance, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read a reflection here.

A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. If you want to go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions, start here↗.

1,160 open job listings for "miltech" in Ukraine — and that number says more about the country's wartime economy than any strategy slide could.

This episode goes inside Ukraine's military technology ecosystem: how a sector with no venture capital roadmap at the beginning and no government masterplan became one of the fastest-moving innovation environments in the world. From drone production to human-centred AI in practice — not as a corporate slogan, but faster, higher-stakes decision-making on the ground — this is a look at how civilian capability, urgency, and defense-tech converge when conditions make it necessary.

Topics: decision-making, defense tech, wartime economy, innovation, Ukraine.

Topics: Ukraine's defense tech industry, dual-use innovation, drone manufacturing, human-centered AI, wartime entrepreneurship, civic mobilization.

Enjoy the episode or read a 3-minute reflection here.

A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. If you want to go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions, ⁠start here↗⁠

Image: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, July 8, 2026.

A $10 million missile can turn a functioning business into rubble in under five minutes — and it doesn't distinguish between a military target and a warehouse. This is what "risk tolerance" actually means when you run a company in Ukraine.

This episode looks at CEO decision-making under wartime conditions — mobilization, workforce loss, and the leadership calls no MBA prepares you for. Ben Horowitz coined the term "Wartime CEO" for crisis leadership; in Ukraine, every CEO is one, literally, not as a metaphor.

Topics: wartime CEO, decision-making, leadership under pressure, war economy, Ukraine.
Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection here.

A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → ⁠https://www.ishkraba.com/⁠

Image from exhibition Still Joy @ Pinchuck art centre, Kyiv 2026

A minivan turned into a mobile pizza kitchen, driving toward areas near the front line to feed people who need it. Not a metaphor — an actual business decision made by someone who chose to stay in Kyiv.

This episode is about the fragmented, individual decisions of expats and locals who chose to stay, build, or return to Ukraine despite the uncertainty — and why here, business, behavior, and intent are impossible to separate. Not institutions. Not strategy. Just people building something where they are, one decision at a time.

Topics: decision-making, human behavior, expat life, resilience, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection ⁠here⁠.
A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → https://www.ishkraba.com/

Image: at the rooftop of InterContinental Kyiv, view of St.Andrew’s Church, 26 June 2026

A Russian strike hit the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra this week — a 1,000-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site I grew up beside. Eighty percent of the Dormition Cathedral's roof is gone. The repair bill: over $11 million.

This episode is about growing up next to a place the world calls heritage, and what it means when that place becomes a target — not by accident, but because it was already doing symbolic work long before the strike came. It's also about how international institutions describe damage without naming who's responsible.

Topics: Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, cultural heritage, war in Ukraine, resilience.

Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection here.

A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → ⁠https://www.ishkraba.com/⁠

Domes of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra in winter 2021, photo by Ganna Aibetova on Unsplash

"We came here for business. We stayed because of people." A client of mine, who relocated to Kyiv two years ago, said this to me recently — and it explains why so many foreign companies misread the Ukrainian market.

This episode is about presence as a trust signal, not a logistics decision. Ukraine is a low-trust market — a rational result of decades of instability and war, not a flaw. Companies that orbit from a distance — quarterly visits, remote advisors — read as interest, not commitment. And the difference is a behavioral one, felt immediately by the people deciding whether to trust you.

Topics: business decision-making, trust, market entry, behavior, Ukraine.

Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.
A decade in corporate environments across 12 countries, plus years of entrepreneurship, taught me one thing: numbers are never the full story. Go deeper on the behavioral side of business decisions → https://www.ishkraba.com/

Photo from my personal archive: I’m somewhere on a rooftop in Kyiv, Ukraine

Risk tolerance, threat normalization, and the logic of personal safety decisions.

Enjoy the episode or read a 2-minute reflection ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

You can support my work ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

Image: A screenshot from a video of the underground parking in the residential complex TrIIInity, May 2026