"We call our business the Phoenix, because we’ve been reborn in a third location"

Entrepreneurs from Crimea save their business twice and start to thrive in Lviv Oblast

April 17, 2025

A smiling woman in a red jacket stands in a workshop with industrial equipment. — Photo: Ksenia Nevenchenko / UNDP Ukraine

Anastasia Serova founded her company, Citius S, in 1991 in Crimea. The company specialized in the manufacture of safety glass and the conversion of cars with such glass. The business flourished, and its first opportunities to enter the European market even appeared. However, in 2014, after the occupation of the peninsula, the company was forced to leave its already established production facilities.

Interior frames of vehicles arranged in a factory, highlighting their layered structure.

"We immediately planned to save the business so that it would remain in Ukraine," says Serova, Citius S’s executive director.

A smiling woman in a red jacket and white hoodie stands in a workshop.

Two workers engaged in metal fabrication in a workshop, one welding and the other using tools.

A person in a black hoodie grinds metal on a workbench in a workshop.

Despite many difficulties, the company’s owners evacuated their employees and the equipment they needed to keep operating. They chose to set up shop again in Melitopol, where Serova and her team started to resume operations.

But on the first day of the full-scale invasion – 24 February 2022 – Melitopol also fell under occupation, and the business had to relocate for a second time. However, unlike in 2014, none of the equipment could be saved this time. Only the director's family and nine other families of employees managed to leave. The business has now settled in Lviv Oblast – far from the front line.

"It took about six months to get back to a basic level," Serova recalls. "The Citius S team is used to relying solely on its own resources, but it turned out to be difficult to navigate on our own the constant changes in wartime conditions."

Looking for support, Serova became a participant in the pilot launch of the geographic diversification programme. This is a project that helps businesses adapt to a new location – particularly the peculiarities of the regional market – develop a strategy, find funding resources, and build connections with like-minded entrepreneurs. The initiative was launched by the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the assistance of the German Society for International Cooperation – a German federal foreign development agency.

An industrial workshop with several workers engaged in various tasks and equipment.

A welder in protective gear works on a metal surface, producing bright sparks.

"The project definitely benefited us," says Serova. “When we were participating in it, we were just completing the move. Here, in Lviv Oblast, we rented a workshop and employed 18 internally displaced persons, most of whom are women."

Later, after restarting operations, the company managed to expand its capacity. Currently, there are 87 people on staff, and a land plot has been purchased. The company has managed to double its sales, acquire the status of critical infrastructure, as well as open a new workshop for the production of plastic furniture for ambulances.

"I always joke that after victory, we will have three factories, because we will return both to Melitopol and to Crimea." Serova recalls.

“We call our business the Phoenix, because we’ve been reborn in a third place,” Serova says. “You can find resources, but not people – they have to be protected. So people from Crimea are still working with us. They’ve already escaped with us from occupation twice.”

A woman in a red jacket holds a photo of a room inside a yellow-columned building.

Thanks to UNDP's partnership with the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Geographical Diversification programme, 33 enterprises have already relocated from regions affected by the war.

Each of these businesses were given the opportunity to fully resume their operations after suffering significant losses due to the war.

This material was created as part of the international cooperation project ReACT4UA ("Application and Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in the Field of Trade") which is funded by the German government. The project is implemented by the German federal foreign development company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, together with UNDP in Ukraine.