For almost three weeks now, the first thing I do every morning is open the news. Not out of curiosity, but with a knot in my stomach. On 24 February, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and a war I thought belonged in history books has reached Romania’s border.
I hesitated before writing about it on a blog that is mostly about business. Staying silent felt wrong. So I will start with people, and only then talk about money, contracts and invoices. That order matters.
People first
The images from the border crossings, at Siret (a town on Romania’s northern border with Ukraine) and elsewhere, are hard to watch: mothers with children, elderly people, families who left with a single bag and no idea when they will return. Many have travelled on, others have stayed with us. And here, honestly, Romania made me proud.
Volunteers spending whole days in the cold at the border, families opening their homes, companies sending transport, food, accommodation or simply people to help, NGOs organising themselves within hours. I saw Romanians in this mode during the pandemic too, when I wrote about what communities got right in a crisis. The scale is different now, and so was the response. Any discussion of the economic impact comes after this.
What we can already see in the economy
I am not an economist and I don’t make forecasts. But less than three weeks into the war, a few things are already obvious to anyone running a company:
- Energy and fuel. Gas, electricity and fuel prices, already high after the winter, have jumped. Any business that depends on transport, production or deliveries feels it immediately.
- Supply chains. We were only just getting out of the post-pandemic bottlenecks. Now add closed routes, raw materials sourced from the region, hauliers recalculating their costs and lead times getting longer.
- Inflation. Price pressure was already there. The war adds to it, and customers will feel it in their pockets, which means in their shopping baskets too.
- Sanctions. The European Union has adopted successive sanctions packages against Russia, including cutting some Russian banks off from SWIFT. Many Western companies are suspending or shutting down their operations in Russia.
- Cyber risk. Authorities in several countries have warned businesses to be more vigilant about cyberattacks. You don’t have to be a direct target to be hit.
- Investor caution. When the word “war” appears next to the name of a region, money gets more careful. Some funding rounds are being postponed, some decisions are taking longer.
A view from Cyprus
I have lived in Limassol since 2018, and I know that business ties with both Russia and Ukraine run deep here. There are large communities from both countries, service firms, shipping companies, consultancies, people who have worked together for years. I touched on this when I wrote about the myths and reality of the business island.
Cyprus is an EU member state and applies European sanctions, so some companies here are going through a hard time: extra checks at banks, contracts that need reviewing, clients who can no longer pay or get paid. I don’t want to speculate on how big the impact will be. I will only say this: if you have partners or suppliers linked to the region, now is the time to talk to a lawyer and to your bank, not in three months.
What an entrepreneur can do right now
When the pandemic started, I wrote about the first lessons from lockdown. Some of them still apply, even though this situation is different. Here is what I would do, in this order:
- Look after your people. If you have colleagues with family in Ukraine, or Ukrainian colleagues, ask them what they need. Flexible hours, time off, practical help. Nobody can work normally while wondering whether their parents are safe.
- Review your supply chain. List your suppliers and everything that depends, directly or indirectly, on the region. Look for alternatives before you need them.
- Read your contracts. Force majeure, price adjustment and payment clauses. Better to find out what they say now than in the middle of a dispute.
- Check your energy costs. Where you can save, what you can renegotiate, what you can shift in time. Every percentage point counts when bills go up.
- Hold on to cash. Your cash reserve is what keeps you alive when things move fast. This is not the moment for big investments that aren’t urgent.
- Digital hygiene. Change passwords, turn on two-factor authentication everywhere, test your backups, train people to spot a suspicious email. Boring things that can save you.
- Don’t cut in a panic. The temptation is to stop everything: marketing, hiring, projects. Some adjustments are needed, but decisions made out of fear are usually the ones you regret.
- Talk openly with your customers. If delivery times change or prices rise, tell them early and explain why. People forgive bad news; they don’t forgive silence.
Help where you can
Every company has something to offer, even if it isn’t a large sum. A job for a refugee who stays in Romania. Space, transport or free services for the organisations handling arrivals. Donated products. Volunteering time for your team. The size of the gesture matters less than doing it now, when it is needed, and together with the people who know what is actually missing.
One practical tip: ask before you send. I have already seen collection points overflowing with things nobody needed while other items ran short. Serious NGOs publish lists of what they need; follow them.
The longer view: Romania is no longer on the periphery
I am trying to be careful here, because nobody knows how this war will end and I don’t want to speculate. One thing does seem clear already: NATO’s eastern flank is now at the centre of attention, and Romania has a strategic importance that, until recently, many people treated as a mere detail of geography.
Over time, this may bring more investor interest, teams and operations relocating from elsewhere in the region, infrastructure and energy projects. I say “may” on purpose. The opportunities will only be real if we are ready for them: with institutions that work, stable rules and well-trained people. I don’t believe in “profiting from war”, but I do believe that after every crisis, the winners are those who prepared during it.
Instead of a conclusion
Business matters. I have been building companies since I was 18, and I know how many lives depend on a company that works. But now, more than ever, it is worth remembering that we build them for people. If we lose our humanity along the way, no number makes sense any more.
How have you responded in your own companies over these past weeks? What helped, and what would you do differently? I would love to hear, because right now we need to learn from each other more than ever.