Ukraine's tech industry is learning how to establish a new and fragile normality

Like the rest of the country, Ukraine's tech industry and the people sustaining it have faced massive trauma and disruption since the Russian invasion began on February 24. According to Rest of World, half a year on, many tech workers remain displaced, both within Ukraine and outside of it. Most tech companies in Ukraine have found ways to carry on, often while contributing to the broader war effort by attempting to fight Russian disinformation or donating to the armed forces and humanitarian efforts. As the conflict's dynamics have shifted, some of their employees, like Toporkova, have begun returning to their desks in Kyiv and elsewhere.

Rest of World spoke to Ukrainian tech workers, inside and outside the country, to learn how they are attempting to establish a new, fragile normality. Despite continued heavy fighting in the south and east, and the constant risk of Russian strikes on civilian areas, they described getting back to the rhythms and habits of life before the war as much as possible, working from hastily found apartments by the Polish border, or timing their movements and social engagements around regular air raid alerts.

While Toporkova was gone, Ukrainian forces fought, and won, the battle for Kyiv. By the beginning of April, they had reclaimed territory all the way to the country's northern borders. Over messaging apps, friends and colleagues told her the capital had been slowly returning to something more like itself: bars and restaurants had reopened, followed by shops and other businesses. MacPaw's office, located among the concrete blocks of downtown Kyiv — its sleek green-and-black complex housing an expansive lounge, exercise space, and two cats of its own — was increasingly busy too.