Valeriya Ionan

Years of Russia’s full-scale invasion have pushed Ukraine to innovate at extraordinary speed. The country has built a defense tech ecosystem capable of keeping pace.

Ukraine’s digital state survived a full-scale war. The next step is building a government where citizens can state what they need, and the state delivers the outcome without queues or bureaucracy.

When investors ask Oksana Markarova—Ukraine’s former Finance Minister—about Ukraine, she gives them an answer they do not expect. "I'm not trying to tell investors it's safe in Ukraine," she told me. "I just want to say that it's not safe in the world. In that world, Ukraine is the place that already has a proven track record of being resilient in non-safe conditions."

Ukrainian entrepreneur Andriy Fedoriv believes the country’s greatest competitive advantage is its business culture: resilient, fast-moving, and shaped by constant uncertainty.

Most investors I meet say they are interested in Ukraine. Very few of them have actually been here.