Ukraine’s largest private postal company has established its own air defence capabilities and shot down Russian attack drones targeting its facilities, highlighting how businesses are increasingly being forced to protect themselves as Moscow intensifies its assault on civilian infrastructure.
Vyacheslav Klymov, co-owner of Nova Poshta’s parent company Nova, disclosed the initiative at the Kyiv International Economic Forum on October 26.
He said the company had destroyed Russian Shahed-type drones, although he declined to provide further details.
“We are one of the few companies that has implemented this project,” Klymov said.
Nova Poshta operates more than 15,800 branches across Ukraine and employs over 34,000 people.
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Its extensive network of post offices and distribution centres has repeatedly come under Russian attack, placing employees, logistics operations and essential delivery services at risk.
The company’s investment in air defence reflects the mounting pressure on Ukrainian businesses to maintain operations under sustained bombardment. Since late summer, Russia has also deployed jet-powered attack drones, adding a faster-moving threat to the Shahed-type drones and missiles already striking targets across the country.
Klymov argued that businesses should also develop their own firefighting capabilities rather than wait for emergency services to arrive. He said Nova Poshta employees regularly tackled significant fires at company premises before state firefighters reached the scene.
“Who can forbid me from putting out a fire on my own territory?” he said, describing how larger businesses were seeking to acquire fire engines in Europe.
Despite the war, Nova Poshta’s financial performance has strengthened, with the company reporting a fourfold increase in net profit compared with the previous year, according to financial reports published in April.
Its approach illustrates a broader shift in Ukraine’s wartime economy; companies are not merely adapting to the threat of attack but investing in capabilities traditionally associated with the state.
As Russian strikes continue to target civilian infrastructure, protecting commercial facilities has become a matter of operational survival — and increasingly, a private-sector responsibility.
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