Despite turbulence, Swedish businesses remain in Ukraine

Erik Liljengren, a Swedish entrepreneur in Ukraine and chief financial officer of Oium, an outsourcing consultancy, found it odd when Ukrainian businesspeople approached him with a proposal to build a monument to a long-dead Swedish monarch.

“They came from a region in southern Ukraine where local Cossacks had helped King Charles XII cross the river after fleeing the Battle of Poltava in 1709,” Liljengren remembers. The businessmen said they wanted his help getting in touch with Swedish entrepreneurs to raise money for the monument.