People turned to the centre for help when they didn't know who to turn to to solve urgent organisational issues, says Ponomarenko. “Help was needed immediately, because in fact someone could even be standing at the border, not knowing their rights or what documents would be necessary to have, call us – and receive an answer immediately.”

Most of those appealing to the centre for help were women with children, from various regions, although mainly from those where hostilities were taking place. The number of requests also increased significantly as soon as the number of attacks increased, Ponomarenko says.

A lot of advice was also given regarding animals: At the start of the full-scale invasion, border checks were not as thorough. But later, at their new locations, pet owners were faced with the requirement to provide vaccination documents. The hotline specialists collected all the necessary information from embassies and other responsible bodies, and quickly passed it on to pet owners.

This was not just a classic hotline, where people could get advice and be given the necessary contacts: The centre’s consultants provided full support to people facing difficult questions, and created for them a “road map” with a plan of further steps, as well as recommendations – they sought to give people as much information as possible about how to act in this or that situation.

“There were even situations when people didn't know what the emergency phone number was in case something happened. They called us and asked for the phone number of the police or the medical clinic.” – Alina Ponomarenko

The stories of those people who were still in the territories where hostilities were taking place affected her the most, Ponomarenko says. There were also people who wrote to the chatbot while in the occupied territory. “These stories were very touching, because you understood that the person was physically in danger,” Ponomarenko says.

What case was the most notable? “I remember one old man, he was leaving with his grandchildren from a territory where hostilities were taking place,” Ponomarenko recalls. “We were talking with him even when he was at the stage of departure near the border. A few weeks later, he called again and was already asking how to get (his grandchildren) into kindergarten and school,” says Ponomarenko. “I remembered (him), so we were glad to hear from each other. I knew that everything was OK, that he had settled in.”

After half a year, Ponomarenko resumed her main activity as a consultant at the Diia.Business centre for the entrepreneurs support in Poltava, once it had returned to offline mode in full. But she remembers her work at the virtual centre, and values the experience: “It was interesting, active work, where I constantly communicated and supported citizens,” Ponomarenko says. “Consulting, I felt my usefulness in a very difficult time for my country, because I saw its immediate results, as all issues were solved immediately.”

The virtual centre project was initiated by the team of the national Diia.Business centre, which is implemented by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office. The innovative hotline was implemented by the Small and Medium Business Support Consulting Centre, an NGO, with the assistance of the DIA Support project that the UNDP in Ukraine is implementing with financial support from Sweden.