When Galyna Kaliuk picked up her phone on the morning of February 24, 2022, she saw dozens of messages, all saying more or less the same thing: The war has started. Leave Kyiv.
She woke her 12-year-old daughter, ordering, “Get dressed, now!” Fifteen minutes after seeing the phone messages, the two left with just one backpack each.
She knew that the enemy was advancing toward Kyiv’s industrial zone, where her employer, Lovaré tea, is located. She didn’t know it at the moment, but the Russians were beginning a less visible yet vitally consequential second front. Their goal was economic destruction as a deliberate instrument of war.
Economic Infrastructure as a Military Target
The company where Kaliuk works, Lovaré tea, exports to more than 30 countries. Before the invasion, raw materials and packaging moved through Black Sea ports and familiar overland routes. The system was reliable, efficient, and from Kaliuk’s point of view, comfortable.
Then the ports were blocked, and getting supplies became a nightmare. “Delivery times increased two- to threefold,” Kaliuk said, and then added, “We had to reroute shipments through Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Poland, and because of this, our costs skyrocketed.”
Lovaré’s packaging was particularly vulnerable to this disruption. The brand is known for its distinctive cylindrical containers: 6-inch-tall tubes with colorful embossed Ukrainian designs. The tubes are designed to stand upright on kitchen counters, adding a decorative and upbeat touch to a kitchen shelf. However, those cylinders were produced in Kharkiv, close to the front line. Early on, the Kharkiv packaging facility was bombed, and much of the inventory was destroyed.
“Timely deliveries were no longer possible,” Kaliuk said. “We had to move production to Europe.”
The relocation preserved continuity, but this meant increased costs. Lovaré demonstrates that what appears to be a simple consumer good rests on multiple suppliers, cross-border transport corridors, and geographically distributed manufacturers.
The consequences for Kaliuk and her 400 fellow workers were dire. “When production stops,” Kaliuk said, “it is not just tea. It is salaries. It is taxes. It is export revenue.”
Economic Warfare in Historical Context
In both World War I and World War II, belligerents also pursued economic warfare through naval blockades, bombing of large industrial centers, and efforts to destroy transportation nodes. Allied bombing campaigns against German rail yards and fuel production facilities were explicitly designed to degrade war-making capacity by crippling industrial output. The logic was clear: disrupt the economic foundation, and military capability will weaken.
Russia’s campaign against Ukraine reflects a contemporary version of that doctrine. Instead of mass industrial bombardment alone, it combines precision strikes on factories, energy infrastructure, plus cyber and logistical disruption. The objective in this Other Front is not to seize territory but to create systemic economic damage. In this framework, each factory forced offline is a gain that matters in ways comparable to gaining or losing land.
Employment as Strategic Stabilizer
During the occupation and temporary shutdown, Kaliuk observed an immediate psychological shift among her employees.
“Without work, you constantly read the news,” she said. “You live inside fear.”
However, when Lovaré managed to get back online, things changed. “Work gives purpose,” she said. “Even for a few hours, people step away from panic.” Today, the Lovaré employees come to work despite frequent blackouts and periodic shelling. Their resilience and others like them are invaluable assets for the national economy.
Policy Implications
Lovaré’s experience is that even under fire, the company has been able to continue operation, and it still distributes its tea in more than 30 countries. Amazon is one of its important distributors.
“This is not only about our brand,” Kaliuk said. “It is about showing that Ukraine continues to produce and trade.” She knows that maintaining foreign currency inflows reinforces Ukraine’s fiscal position and its integration into global markets.
Russia’s goal is to prevent companies like Lovaré from producing or trading or providing employment or paying taxes or providing foreign exchange. Russia is seemingly doing everything it can to achieve this goal.
Companies like Lovaré, by continuing to operate, have the honor of helping thwart Russia’s ability to win on the Other Battlefront.
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Mitzi Perdue writes from and about Ukraine and is an IWP Fellow.
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To purchase Lovaré tea, please visit https://lovare.us or the Lovaré page on Amazon.