News Update, January 10: AltexSoft Effectively Addresses the Risks Caused by Airstrikes

Situation in Ukraine: main military activities are on the East, airstrikes continue, air defense efficiency increased

As of today, the most intense military actions are localized in the Eastern regions (cities of Bakhmut, Kreminna, etc.), and the General Staff doesn’t see an immediate threat of attacks from the north. Unfortunately, the shelling of infrastructure continues, but its effectiveness is significantly reduced due to the strengthening and adaptation of air defense.

On November 23, the Russian military conducted another massive airstrike targeting Ukrainian infrastructure in different locations around the country. According to the Ukrainian Air Force’s spokesperson, 51 of the 70 launched rockets have been intercepted. Later, two main waves of air attacks were on December 16 and 29 with 76 and 69 missiles launched from land, sea, and air. And again, 60 and 56 of them (correspondingly) were shot down.

So, thanks to the increased efficiency of the air defense forces, Ukraine is sustaining the “air war”. However, these attacks still keep delivering considerable damage to power infrastructure leading to temporary electricity shutdowns in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and other locations.

How we work: organizing autonomously powered office locations, keeping contact with all employees, considering relocation options

For those of our employees who still work from Ukraine, we at AltexSoft have made thorough preparations understanding the potential risks of these attacks. As a result, the absolute majority of our staff wasn’t seriously affected. Those partially impacted by the outages (or related internet connection problems) have rescheduled their working hours for a different day or the weekend. So, we can state that our past preparations and employee communications have largely been successful.

Nevertheless, we understand that these attacks will likely continue throughout the next months. So we planned on our next steps aimed at minimizing the company risks related to the Ukrainian group of AltexSoft employees.

Organizing uninterrupted operations. In November and December, our primary focus has been on achieving maximum coverage of autonomously powered office locations around Ukraine to provide office space to most of our employees. As of today:

• We have two major hubs in Lviv and Kremenchuk. These are the cities where more than half of Ukrainian employees are located. We have our offices in both cities, these offices are supplied with diesel generators and Starlink antennae, and both are effectively protected even against power outages that will last one week or more.
• We have rented another two smaller offices in Kyiv and Ivano-Frankivsk. These two cities have smaller communities of employees centered around each of them. Both locations are similarly equipped with generators and antennae, allowing for long-term autonomous operations.
• Several other cities around Ukraine (e.g., Vinnytsia, Poltava, Kharkiv) have anywhere between three and seven AltexSoft employees present. Since November 23, we’ve arranged similar office spaces within these locations. Some of them are similarly equipped through our efforts, while in other cases, we’re subrenting space from our partners within the Ukrainian IT industry, who also implement risk management activities for their own purposes and are willing to share their facilities with AltexSoft.

Establishing effective communication. We consistently communicate all of these changes throughout the company using all-staff meetings, departmental meetings, efforts of human resources specialists, internal newsletters, webinars, etc. So, there is practically no chance that someone may still be unaware of the existing risks and approaches to minimize them. 

Thanks to that, we continue seeing additional personal efforts on the part of our colleagues. Many of them have purchased diesel generators, portable power stations, and Starlink antennae for their homes, even while being located in the cities with the main office hubs, such as Lviv or Kremenchuk.

In addition, we keep very close contact with the very few ones who are located further away from any of the cities mentioned above. We have detailed ongoing conversations with each of them to understand how they create the autonomous working environment to address these risks and discuss their backup plans for emergency situations.

Making arrangements outside of Ukraine. In addition to our coordination work in Ukraine, we also advise temporary relocations outside of the country for winter months to employees who can do so, considering their personal and family situations. 

And finally, as we continue hiring new employees primarily in other countries, we have additional risk mitigation strategies in place which will allow us to promptly find a resolution outside of Ukraine, should the list of steps mentioned above not be sufficient. However, it’s the very last resort which we hope we wouldn’t have to turn to.

As you can see, we clearly realize the risks we are facing and take diverse steps to address them and support our employees. By this time, these steps have proven their efficiency as our productivity stays high, so we stay optimistic and keep delivering maximum value to our clients.