From 2015 to 2022, Iurii Gulevatyi was an arbitration specialist lawyer in Kyiv but, when Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, he was thrust into the war. In conversation with the IBA he recalls the chaos and confusion of that time and how he came to be a Captain of Justice.
In 2022, when Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, Iurii Gulevatyi was working as an arbitration lawyer at AGA Partners Law Firm in Kyiv. A small, now medium-sized, arbitration boutique, it focused on commodity-based arbitration. Since 2015, he’d handled matters often relating to trade in grain, oil and other products essential to the Ukrainian economy, which would be distributed from various European ports. As these arbitration cases were often heard in the London Maritime Arbitrators Association, he would work with or against well-known London-based law firms like Clyde & Co, Reed Smith and Norton Rose Fulbright.
Suddenly, when Putin’s Russia invaded in 2022, everything changed – for Gulevatyi and for everyone in Ukraine. ‘This situation was heating up and emotions, the feeling that the war was coming was increasing from 2000’, he says. ‘The risk of full-scale invasion was increasing from 2014 when the Russians occupied Crimea, when the Russians started the war in the eastern part, in the Donbass region. Ten years ago, I already thought the biggest threat would be coming in the future. There was still hope that this would not happen, that it would somehow be resolved, maybe Putin would die, I don’t know. In 2021, the feeling that a big war was coming was increased twice or a few times – from autumn 2021, we were really nervous. I was and my law firm was, at the risk of a full-scale invasion.’
When their worst fears were confirmed, everything was thrown into turmoil. ‘Morally, I was preparing myself for such a scenario. I was preparing myself that at some point in time I would go to the army, this is actually what happened in February. It was totally chaotic on 24 February. Even when I try to remember this, I am a little bit nervous because everything was so fast, and Russians were coming to Kyiv. I was trying to relocate my family. My father was living close to the Russian army to the North of Kyiv. And I was seeing all these helicopters, and this was an immediate threat. So, I spent some time to relocate my family and then, in March 2022, I voluntarily went to the army.’
Gulevatyi was thrust straight into the war. ‘Within a few days I was mobilised, having relocated my family to the western part of Ukraine. In the first weeks after the full-scale invasion, many people did the same, because they had relatives or found a hotel. I did the same. Once I’d relocated my father, my mother, my girlfriend (now my wife) – because it wasn’t safe to travel back to Kyiv alone – I went to a mobilisation centre in the west. From there I went to the combat unit with artillery and missile troops. At this point, you have no option, the army decides itself where a particular person should go. So, they transferred me to go with artillery and missile troops even though I hadn’t served in the army before and didn’t know anything about missiles and artillery.’
Of course, for security reasons, Gulevatyi can’t talk about specific locations where his combat unit operated but he can easily recall his feelings at the time: ‘Of course, I was afraid. It was scary. During the first weeks, there was a strange mixture of feelings: of being afraid, and at the same time I had this tragic feeling that we need to do a lot to help ourselves, to help the country, to help the state. So, it was a mixture of feeling that I am in the army – we will fight, we will defend our country, we shall stay strong – [and], at the same time, being afraid because of all the explosions, because I didn’t have an idea about missiles and artillery. So, it was a mixture of all these feelings’.
We’re at war with Russia and need money to pay soldiers their salary or to pay the families of soldiers who were killed. For this reason, we’re trying to find pro bono support
Iurii Gulevatyi
Captain and Head of Arbitration, Ukrainian Ministry of Defence
More at https://www.ibanet.org/From-arbitration-lawyer-to-armed-forces-Iurii%20Gulevatyi