As a CEO of ElectroNeek, the Company with more than 180 people globally, and with almost 30% of them in Ukraine and Russia, I'm shocked that the words "war" and "death" have started being on the top of our minds for all of us during the last three weeks.
As a Russian person who was born in Kazakhstan and great-grandson of colonel of artillery who fought against Nazis during the WW2, helped to liberate Berlin and then was buried in Vinnytsia, Ukraine with his wife, I'm standing against the current Russian government's and President Putin's decision that they made choosing the worst way of solving this significant local geopolitical challenge - the war. The whole generations of my family worked and supported the growth of the country's success and did not make this war acceptable. The end never justifies the means. Violence is not a solution.
As a person who believes in the values of the Western world and who lives in the USA, I disagree entirely with the policies of Meta corporation that allowed (but later rejected) calls to punish and harm people based on their nationality or origin. Doing this can convert the USA and other countries with a solid democracy level to the worst versions of them. My ancestors fought for the protection of jews and the whole world from these dirty ideas, and I continue this movement even if I will be alone in this way.
Based on these thoughts, here is a list of 10 (ten) statements of ElectroNeek that we made in reason of the Russian-Ukrainian war:
- ElectroNeek's team discussed and condemned this war internally in the first hours of the invasion. Here is no different opinion inside our team.
- ElectroNeek's management team defined the program of changing the processes and strategy of the Company in the first seven days of the war, shared this data with all stakeholders and shareholders, and started the execution.
- ElectroNeek made their products free for customers in Ukraine during this year to support entrepreneurs who create and sustain jobs.
- ElectroNeek stopped the acquisition of new customers in Russia and Belarus. All investments in those areas are on hold.
- ElectroNeek is not going to block current active users. We serve small and midsize IT service providers and can't say that they are guilty in this war unless the court will prove the opposite. If the USA government will release restrictions that apply to all Russian businesses in general, not sanctioned companies or persons, we will follow all of these rules.
- ElectroNeek doesn't have any legal subsidiary in Russia, and has canceled our plans for having this entity in the future.
- ElectroNeek allocated funds for a relocation program for all of our people in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. ElectroNeek will cover transportation and initial housing costs for all of our people.
- ElectroNeek is going to close the Eastern Europe-based R&D hub and extend investments to the LatAm-based R&D hub that was created in 2021.
- ElectroNeek understands the possibility of our employees' and contractors' public social media posts about this war. No one will be punished for sharing personal opinions in public. We just asked our people who are still based in the conflict area to be careful.
- ElectroNeek will donate funds to RedCross in the next two weeks and double-match all donations that ElectroNeek's employees make from their personal funds.
We pray for the people who struggle and die in Ukraine these days and hope to see peace as soon as possible. It's time for politicians to show their value to the world and find the solution for all of us.
Thank you for your attention!
Sergey Yudovskiy,
Co-founder and CEO