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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jamie Wilson and Nick Hopkins in Kharkiv

‘Someday the war will end. And the world needs tools’: why a Ukrainian toolmaker keeps working

Sergei, a leatherworker at Fadir Tools in Kharkiv, stands over a workbench.
Sergei, a leatherworker at Fadir Tools in Kharkiv, spent nine months living in his family’s basement in Izium last year. Photograph: Jamie Wilson/The Guardian

Running a small business is hard work at the best of times. Throw in a full scale war, including a Russian missile strike that damages your factory, and the job gets even harder.

Fadir Tools, an artisan toolmaker in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, has had a tricky war. When the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, owner Serhii Ivin, 41, closed the factory, picked up his pump action shotgun and headed for the main administrative building to help defend the city. A couple of nights later a Russian rocket landed just down the hall. He spent the next few weeks holed up in the basement.

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