When foreign investors consider joining the reconstruction, they often fearfully imagine Russian missiles hitting their offices, land mines crippling employees or drone strikes destroying warehouses.
Not to fear, says George Janjalia, the former Georgian military intelligence officer who led security in Ukraine for a globally famous AI company through three years of war. When the war ends - whether in a tense truce or permanent peace - the concern will no longer be missiles.
But consider the new security challenge:
Eager executives, many with little to no experience in Ukraine, will be chasing billions of dollars in contracts in a country fresh off of years of brutal warfare, replete with weapons, with hundreds of thousands of veterans suffering from PTSD, amid a resurgence of fractious internal politics.
George reflects that Ukraine for years will remain one of the best countries in the world for a man of his experience and profession - risk assessment, counter-surveillance, crisis response, and more, with an MBA and a Master’s in Information Management.
George was embedded for three years with the global AI firm, which has Ukrainian roots, by his employer Healix, which serves many of the world's most famous companies and organizations. Healix specializes in medical and security evacuation, crisis response, travel risk management, and global assistance services worldwide.
Now that the client is taking security in-house, George must decide whether to return to his homeland or pursue another contract in Ukraine. In that context, he offers the following tips to foreign investors considering joining the $500 billion reconstruction of Ukraine:
George Janjalia's 5 Tips for Investors in the Reconstruction
#1 - The threats will change dramatically after the war, but they will remain serious.
"Right now, a lot of companies are interested in coming to Ukraine. They have to have either in-house or outsourced security. If something happens, they have to have a system in place to say that this is what we had again, it happened, but we will fix it, or we have a means to respond to that, or so on so forth. But they also have to realize the risk context will change. Right now, the biggest risks are the explosions and fires caused by projectiles. When we move to peace time, the situation will change. One of the biggest things that will come into play will be the criminal world that can be created with disgruntled soldiers with PTSD. We're talking about a lot of people who will be really, really angry.
Many people who are serving think that they will finish service, and then work for private military companies, but the private military companies don't really want them. They're afraid of the way they'll behave.
Another thing is the extremist organizations, which have both political and military sides. What will they do? So there's another risk, like inter conflict inside the country, between the political factions, which we don't know how bad will be.
#2 - Remember that you are now protecting your employees' lives.
"When businesses are talking about risk, they don't usually mean risk to life and limb. Well, here it's risk to life and limb. As the leader of an organization, you have to protect your employees' lives. So, on security, you have to be pro-active and not reactive. "
"Make sure you have an understanding of what threat actors there are, and what risks there are from these threat actors, and what are the ways to mitigate it? For some companies, if they had a full picture, they might not come to Ukraine at all."
"Also, you need to be in Ukraine to understand it - you can't do business from outside. Dynamics change so fast that you won't be able to understand what's going on unless you're here. And security will be very important in the next five to 10 years."
#3 - Understand that the mindset is different. Corruption, for example ...
"To understand how things will develop, you need to understand the mindset in the country. For example, corruption is not just a problem within the government. It's a cultural problem, because for years under communism, Ukrainians believed that cheating was OK, because they were cheating the Soviet Union, which they didn't see as their country. Sometimes people were trying to do good for themselves and their families - they were doing some small business. Today, that is considered admirable, but back then it was a different system, so it was considered a bad thing. So the good and the bad were mixed up - right things were wrong things. It's easy to lose your moral compass in that circumstance."
#4 - Be ready for the grid to go down, a lot.
"As the war finishes, we will still have energy problems because the energy infrastructure has been badly damaged. Every time they start repairs, they will have to shut things down. The Ukrainian energy infrastructure has one of the highest levels of redundancy in the world - it's very resilient - because the amounts of strikes is tremendous. But they will still have to rebuild that redundancy. Nobody think that Russians will not be a threat anymore when the war ends. As they rebuild that there will be shutdowns, and businesses must be prepared."
"To ensure business continuity, you need alternate sources of energy, alternate internet connections and maybe even alternate sources of heating. A company I represented bought their employees two EcoFlow batteries. It's a 1 kWh battery that can allow you to continue working."
#5 - The post-war period will bring a return to internal political division and rival factions.
"Foreign investors must account for legal uncertainties, shifting regulations, and evolving security guarantees when you're planning long-term engagements in Ukraine.
"When the war ends, the country will face political uncertainty, economic reconstruction challenges, and maybe internal divisions again. The transition from wartime governance to peacetime administration will test the stability of institutions, and it could lead to protests, policy disputes, and regional tensions—especially in areas they were once occupied by the Russians."
Bonus Tip - Foreigners will be safer than locals, but you will attract more scammers.
"Ukrainians in general are very thankful for what the West is doing for them. So I would say you are physically safer from attack than you might think. But definitely foreigners are perceived to have more money. So they will be a target for scamming and frauds - non-violent criminals. I think that it is less likely that foreigners will face violence in the post-war period - the government will try to prioritize and organize its resources around making sure that it doesn't happen."
