Olena Shyrokova: ‘I feel strong support for Ukraine in the UAE’

Olena Shyrokova doesn’t like the table I’ve reserved at the chic Bar des Prés restaurant, so she takes charge. 

“I know the owner,” she whispers.

After some negotiation with the floor manager, she wins a different table – one with spectacular views from the 51st floor of ICD Brookfield Tower in DIFC, but discreet enough for a private conversation.

It is a much better option than my choice and I make a mental note that this is a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. 

Which I should have expected. Shyrokova – who came to the UAE nine years ago to further her legal career – is an accomplished corporate lawyer and legal consultant, specialising in arbitration.

She is also president of the Ukraine Business Council in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, well accustomed to dealing with senior executives, diplomats and government officials, as well as co-founder of the wider Ukrainian-Arab Business Chamber.

“Here in the UAE I work with the Ukrainian business community and at the regional level I focus on strengthening Ukraine’s economic ties with the Arab world,” she explains.

What she doesn’t tell you up front – but emerges naturally in the course of our lunch – is that she is also a committed advocate of her motherland and a passionate believer in the righteousness of its resistance against Russian invaders.

That is to come, but first we look at the menu, which has been prepared under the expert eye of Cyril Lignac, a French celebrity chef who already had restaurants in Paris and London before opening in Dubai last year. Shyrokova is a regular.

Working across the region

The set business lunch looks good, and I opt for spring rolls while Shyrokova goes for marinated octopus. The rolls are so big and crunchy that I’m forced to chew and listen while she explains her work with the two institutions she represents.

“We have two structures,” she says. “The Ukrainian Business Council focuses on the Emirates. But we also created the Ukrainian-Arab Business Chamber, which covers the whole Middle East. That allows us to work diplomatically across the region – Oman, Saudi Arabia, the GCC.”

The work is practical rather than ceremonial, she says between slivers of razor-shaved octopus.

Delegations are organised and conferences convened. Companies are briefed in advance on potential partners, competitors and buyers. 

“The aim is always to promote Ukrainian business and create real opportunities – not just photoshoots,” she says. “You must come prepared.”

Her work received a boost with the signing last year of a comprehensive economic partnership agreement between the UAE and Ukraine – in effect a free-trade framework that she believes could transform bilateral commerce.

“It was signed last February and we expect ratification very soon,” she says. “Once ratified we’ll organise sector roundtables and trade missions so businesses understand what opportunities exist, especially SMEs.”

She is keen to stress that the agreement is not merely about removing tariffs and other obstacles to trade: “It improves investment conditions and business cooperation. We see the results in other UAE agreements like those with India and Turkey.”

The sectors most likely to attract Gulf interest in Ukraine are, in her view, clear and logical: agriculture and food production, logistics, energy and technology. They map neatly onto Middle Eastern strategic priorities, particularly food security and supply chains.

“Partnership is key,” she says. “Foreign investors should work with Ukrainian companies, creating jobs and production locally. SMEs also matter hugely to the economy.”

Investors demand security

The legal architecture underpinning such investment is her professional domain. As an international arbitration lawyer, she is working to build institutional cooperation between Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice and the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, including a planned conference in Kyiv on investor protection.

“If investors feel legally secure, they invest. Without that, they don’t,” she says simply.

Since its separation from the USSR, Ukraine – and many other former Soviet states – has been plagued by allegations and incidents of corruption. Late in 2025 President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed officials believed to be draining money from the state.

Shyrokova says the anti-corruption campaign is a “fundamental priority” and puts her faith in legal structures to restore international investors’ confidence in the country. We briefly discuss the fact that Russian corruption is far worse, by all independent benchmarks, but is simply taken for granted.

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War inevitably complicates such calculations. I ask the obvious question: surely conflict deters capital?

“It limits the scale, yes,” she says. “But investment still exists. Some Middle Eastern investors already operate in Ukraine and receive dividends even during the war. The challenge is increasing investment. To rebuild the economy we must strengthen business and trade relationships now – not only after peace.”

The resilience of Ukrainian enterprise is something she returns to repeatedly. 

“Ukrainian companies have shown incredible resilience,” she says. “They continue delivering goods and services despite missile attacks.”

She pauses, then adds a line that could serve as a national business motto: “Working with Ukrainian business means working with people who keep operating under any circumstances.”

Devastation in Ukraine

By now the starters are cleared and a light prawn brioche arrives for both of us, neatly plated and delicate.

It is as we begin the mains that the conversation turns darker. I mention the intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this winter – widely reported as among the most severe of the war.

Her voice tightens.

“It’s horrible,” she says. “Electricity outages, extreme cold. Many elderly people suffer. This winter has been one of the worst, with deliberate attacks on energy infrastructure. The energy sector is the top priority for reconstruction.”

The devastation is not abstract to her. She was born in Drohobych, near Lviv in western Ukraine, and still visits regularly despite the risks, for personal and professional reasons. Friends in Kyiv call her with missile impacts audible in the background. The losses are cumulative and deeply personal.

“The tragedy grows every day,” she says quietly. “Deaths, injury, destroyed homes, displaced families. Every Ukrainian has lost someone – a relative, a friend – or a home.”

Yet even here, the emotional register shifts quickly back to resolve. 

“Patriotism is in our DNA,” she says. “People are exhausted, but they don’t give up. The country is unbreakable.”

Ukraine’s political leadership, inevitably, enters the discussion. President Zelensky’s domestic standing has fluctuated during the war, and elections remain contingent on any lasting ceasefire. Shyrokova’s view is measured rather than partisan.

“His popularity may have fallen,” she says, “but people respect that he stayed and leads the country in war. That matters enormously.”

Would she vote for him in a future election? There is a moment’s hesitation. It depends, she says, on the alternatives, “and we don’t know yet.”

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Donald Trump’s role in the geopolitical landscape provokes a firmer response. When I ask whether the US president deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, her answer is emphatic enough to draw glances from neighbouring tables.

“No.”

She elaborates: “After his treatment of Zelensky last year, many Ukrainians felt deeply insulted. Zelensky represents the nation. Trump is unpredictable. Ukrainians watch events closely, but focus mainly on survival and peace.”

That survival instinct extends to Ukraine’s diplomatic positioning in the Gulf. Western narratives sometimes suggest Middle Eastern countries lean towards Russia, but her own experience has been otherwise.

“From my experience with UAE institutions and businesses, I feel strong support for Ukraine,” she says. “We’ve held large Ukrainian events here with government and diplomatic participation. The new ambassador is very proactive.”

Shyrokova singles out one Emirati figure for particular praise.

“I have great respect for Reem Al Hashimy [the UAE’s minister of state for international cooperation] – she is exceptionally strategic and supportive.”

The Russian community in Dubai

The Ukrainian diaspora in the UAE has grown steadily since the invasion, Shyrokova estimates, to perhaps 40,000 people. That number reflects not only new arrivals but also family reunification: expatriates are increasingly bringing parents and vulnerable relatives to safety.

“Many residents brought ageing parents to live here,” she says. “The UAE is very safe.”

Her eyes glisten slightly as she describes this migration of families away from war – not refugees in camps but professionals relocating kin to a functioning global city.

I ask about the parallel Russian presence in Dubai, widely estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. Do the two communities interact?

“Personally, no,” she says. “Nor do any in my close circle.”

The separation is not overtly hostile, she stresses, but socially real. “We remain polite, but socially we prefer international or European environments rather than Russian-dominated venues.”

The phrasing is careful, but the boundary is clear. In a neutral city like Dubai, Ukrainians and Russians coexist physically but inhabit largely distinct social spheres. It is proximity without normalisation.

Her own life in the Emirates is rooted around DIFC, which she describes as her “village”: work, friends, dog parks and restaurants, all within walking distance. Alongside her institutional roles she runs a legal and business consulting firm called Olena.

The conversation circles back to morale – not only inside Ukraine but among Ukrainians abroad. Are they more optimistic now than a year ago?

“They remain fighters,” Shyrokova says. “But the tragedy deepens daily. They are suffering, but strong. Ukraine is unbreakable.”

The US-brokered ceasefire talks have stalled over the issue of Donbas and whether Ukraine should agree to surrender strategically vital land in which a lot of its soldiers have died.

“Losing any part of Ukraine would be like losing a part of your body, but on the other hand this [the war] has to stop somewhere because a whole generation of Ukrainians is dying,” she replies, adding that any such deal should be subject to a national referendum.

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Europe, she believes, remains Ukraine’s natural orientation culturally and economically, even as EU accession timelines remain uncertain. 

“Ukrainians feel European,” she says. “We are grateful for European support – military and humanitarian. But Ukrainians also want clarity about future integration.”

Dessert arrives: for her, a vanilla tart nearly a foot long; for me, an Eton mess that is far more pavlova than the soggy English version. The conversation lightens slightly.

She reflects briefly on the instability of the global order and the fatigue of prolonged war. Then, almost as a sigh, she offers a line that echoes a different era of conflict.

“Sometimes I say: make love, not war,” she says.

It is the slogan of the 1960s peace movement, repurposed by a Ukrainian lawyer in Dubai four years into Europe’s largest war since 1945. Beneath the rhetoric lies a simpler aspiration.

“Ukrainians simply want the right to live normal lives,” she says. “To work, build and exist peacefully.”