That all changed at 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, when his wife shook him awake to say that Russian bombs were raining down on Ukraine.
Udodov quickly opened his company’s group chat and urged his Ukrainian programmers to head west to the safest location.
“My employees sent me a map of the aerial bombardment,” Udodov recalled in a recent interview. It showed strikes all across the country, from Lviv to Kharkiv. “They sent me this map and said, ‘there is no safe destination in Ukraine’.”
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Nearly a month later, the Ukrainian employees of his start-up, Bordio, are taking cover in bomb shelters, struggling with power and Internet cuts and saying goodbye to family members as the civilian population scatters to escape Russian troops.
Two of Bordio’s Russian programmers have fled their country in alarm over Russia’s military action and the government’s new authoritarian tilt, while the ones remaining…
