The struggling middle class helped rebuild Ukraine – now it’s in grave danger

He was a child of the repressive and insular Soviet Union, born in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy, along the Dnieper River south of Kyiv. He had been indoctrinated during his youth with the ideas of Vladimir Lenin and communism, which he embraced.

But then the Soviet Union collapsed, and the world opened up for Alex Dayrabekov. So, too, did the possibilities for him in his own Ukraine, where he became an exemplar of a middle class that has helped remake the country and is now under grave threat by Russia’s ferocious war.

“The middle class in Ukraine is really small, really tiny”, says the 46-year-old business consultant, who fled the now-devastated Kyiv suburb of Irpin with his wife and newborn child just as Russian forces attacked the country. “We have either very rich people or very poor people. Middle class in Ukraine is still very much in formation.”

As Russia hammers away at Ukrainian cities with missiles, airstrikes, and ground forces destroying neighbourhoods and cities, that valuable sliver of educated, moderate income Ukrainians is coming under threat like never before. These educated and resourceful Ukrainians are the ones who could easily find their way abroad, where many have already fled, with their belongings into late-model cars.

Keeping them inside the country, and drawing them back after the war, will be a crucial challenge in the coming months and years.

On Friday, the UK’s ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, announced that she was returning to work in Kyiv in what will be seen as a vote of confidence in the country and its future.

Despite high education levels, Ukraine is categorised as a lower-middle-income nation that is among Europe’s poorest. Demographers typically assess that Ukraine’s middle class only makes up about 5 to 15 per cent of the population. Even before the war, scholars wrote with concern about prospects for the middle class, which was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. One paper described “a general decline in living standards and the growth of poverty” in Ukraine during 2020. “The main burden of the crisis is expected to fall on the middle-income group,” said the scholars.

While Russia’s economy is expected to decline by up to 15 per cent because of sanctions, Ukraine’s may be halved because of the war.

“The best thing we can do for the Ukrainian middle class and for Ukraine’s economy in general is to end this war as soon as possible and decrease the damage”, says Sergey Mohov, a 30-year-old Ukrainian video game designer who lives in Helsinki.

His mother, an accountant for a television station in Kyiv, fled abroad to escape the Russian onslaught, which has turned entire cities and towns into rubble. “People are leaving because there is an immediate threat to their lives and livelihoods,” he says. “They’re leaving hoping to go back to their homes and lives, but sometimes there’s nothing to go back to.”

Dayrabekov’s struggles and dilemmas are typical of what many of Ukraine’s middle class have faced. After studying English literature at university, he moved to Kyiv. His English was very good, and he began a career working with international organisations and companies – including the United States Peace Corps.

He took part in the 2004 Orange revolution, only to watch with disgust and disillusion as the country once again became mired in corruption and pro-Kremlin political operatives clawed back control. “Our hopes dissolved completely,” he recalls.

During the 2013-2014 Maidan uprising, he again took part, handing sandwiches and drinks to the protesters who eventually ousted the country’s pro-Kremlin president.

For the past eight years, business in the country has expanded resulting in a financial boom for Ukraine and its middle class.

“I  have been watching the country improve in the last eight years in terms of civil society, reform, corruption, freedom of speech,” says Mohov. “Even the movie industry was growing.”

Dayrabekov eventually moved to the town of Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv known for its pine trees and fresh air. He bought an apartment in a high rise. His wife had just given birth as russian president Vladimir Putin began stepping up his threats against Ukraine.

“I saw all the signals,” he says. “But even with the knowledge and intelligence reports, nobody thought it would really happen.”

His apartment building lies just four miles from Hostomel airport, a target of the initial Russian offensive. When the war started on 24 February, he spotted the military planes flying across the sky.

“We were so scared,” he recalls. He, his wife, the newborn and their two cats gathered up some belongings and made it into the building’s underground parking on the second day of the war. Dozens were already there. It was cold and damp, no proper place for a two-week-old newborn. The family packed up a car and left.

Over the last few weeks, he has sought to help in war and relief efforts, ferrying stranded civilians to safety and using his considerable management skills to organise other volunteers. He is disgusted by Putin’s war. He notes that he grew up speaking Russian, loves Russian rock music, and is ethnically half Russian, as well as a quarter Ukrainian and a quarter Kazakh.

“Putin calls me a neo-Nazi,” he says. “I am the neo-Nazi who most of my life spoke Russian. He came here to kill me, the half Russian.”

For now, Dayrabekov, who has two sons from a previous marriage living abroad with their mother, says he’s remaining inside Ukraine, working remotely as a recruiter for a Chicago-based IT firm. He has spotted his apartment building in video footage, and sees that it has been targeted by Russian artillery, though his side of the building was apparently unscathed.

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As some modicum of calm returned to western and northern Ukraine after Russian regime forces withdrew and redeployed to launch an assault on the country’s east and south, hundreds of thousands of displaced Ukrainians have returned to their country.

“We are sure that there’s no coming back to normal any more,” he says. “We have to be prepared for constant aggression from our eastern neighbour for the next decades. We have to prepare for a new war anytime.”

He continues, “But I don’t want to leave Ukraine. We are an agricultural people. We love our land. I don’t even consider leaving.”