2014 in review
Analysis published during 2014.
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St Nicholas Day 2014
A small kindness on a dark December morning, in a year that had been long. The children got their gifts under the pillow, as they always do.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Holodomor Remembrance Day, 22 November 2014
A remembrance message in a year when the commemoration was harder to keep separate from the present.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukrainian Language Day, 9 November 2014
A language day greeting in a year when more people around me changed which language they use daily.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q3 2014
Industrial output collapsing in the affected regions, currency depreciation continuing, and companies making the first relocation decisions that would reshape the industrial map.
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
Protecting capital where the courts are unreliable: what actually works
The standard advice is to have good contracts. In a jurisdiction where contract enforcement is uncertain, a good contract is necessary and nowhere near sufficient, and the mechanisms…
Trade & Investment -
Kharkiv: the second city, and what it was built for
Ukraine's first Soviet capital, an engineering and university centre of a million and a half people, forty kilometres from a border. Every one of those facts shapes what…
Society & Regions -
Knowledge Day 2014
A first of September in a hard year, and the teachers who opened the doors anyway.
National Days & Anniversaries -
The sector that grew through everything: Ukrainian software services
It had no industrial policy, no state investment and almost no domestic clients. It grew through a currency collapse, a war and a pandemic, and it is now…
Society & Regions -
Independence Day 2014: a smaller map and a rewritten balance sheet
Twenty-three years, and for the first time the anniversary is marked by a country that controls less territory than it did the year before. What that does to…
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q2 2014
The association agreement's economic chapters were signed in June, an IMF programme began in April, gas supply from the east stopped in June, and armed conflict started in…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
Ivana Kupala, 7 July 2014
The shortest nights of the year, a fire, and wreaths on the water.
National Days & Anniversaries -
The Association Agreement: read it as a specification, not a treaty
Two thousand one hundred pages signed on 27 June. Most commentary treats it as a geopolitical statement. For a business, it is something more useful: a dated schedule…
EU & Euro-Atlantic Integration -
Constitution Day, 28 June 2014
A short note on the anniversary in a year when constitutional questions were not abstract.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Vyshyvanka Day, 15 May 2014
A greeting for a day that was noticeably larger this year than last.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Easter, 20 April 2014
An Easter greeting for a difficult spring, kept to the morning itself.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q1 2014
A change of government in February, the end of the fixed exchange rate, the annexation of Crimea in March. The quarter contains more structural change than most decades.
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
After Crimea: the trade geography that changed in three weeks
Beyond the territorial question, the annexation removed port capacity, a shipbuilding cluster, offshore hydrocarbon licences and a maritime zone. This is an inventory of what moved and what…
Trade & Investment -
International Women's Day, 8 March 2014
A short message on a day arriving in a spring nobody was ready for.
National Days & Anniversaries -
What a foreign company actually does when a country goes into crisis
The sequence matters more than any individual decision. People first, then cash, then contracts, then the strategic question — and the strategic question should never be answered in…
Trade & Investment -
Ukraine Annual Review 2013: the year the model ran out
Three consecutive years of falling reserves, a fixed exchange rate the external accounts did not support, an industrial base in structural decline, and a trade decision suspended in…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
Unity Day, 22 January 2014
A greeting for the day, kept to the anniversary itself.
National Days & Anniversaries -
Ukraine Market Report — Q4 2013
The signature was suspended in November, protests began the same week, and a bilateral financing package was agreed in December. The quarter ended with the country's direction genuinely…
Quarterly & Annual Reports -
Christmas, 7 January 2014
A Christmas greeting on the January date, kept simple.
National Days & Anniversaries -
New Year, 1 January 2014
A new year greeting written for a night that a great many people spent on a square rather than at home.
National Days & Anniversaries
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