The founder and head of Russian IT recruiter Lucky Hunter told Recruiter that all the company’s 20-member team are “immediately leaving” Russia and their St Petersburg base to relocate to other countries in light of the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

“We have closed our office in St Petersburg,” said Tatiana Melnichuk in an exclusive statement to Recruiter.

A new office opened in Armenia will supplement a London office, from where Melnichuk will continue the company business “entirely from the UK”. 

“We are against the policy organised by the Russian government,” Melnichuk said in her statement. “We do not support its actions and are heartily sorry that such [activities] may happen in a civilised world.”

She went on to say: “Our company is international. We have colleagues from Ukraine and Belarus, and we are sick at heart when we receive such awful news.”

St Peterburg staff are relocating to Armenia and Georgia, among other countries, another company spokeswoman said. 

In her statement, Melnichuk said her company and candidates from Russia and Belarus had experienced “dismissive” attitudes as a result of the war with some clients “putting co-operation with us on hold while our recruiters receive a lot of unpleasant messages from foreign candidates”.

She added: “IT has always been an unprejudiced sphere… people from the tech sphere are a ‘separate nation’; that is why we work by our own rules.”

Melnichuk said her company was “doing our best to help candidates find jobs somewhere outside these unstable and dangerous regions… We are ready to do all we can to win stability and emotional security by doing our job fully and honestly”. 

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