Berlin, who is a member of the G7 Business Advisory Council for Ukraine, said he expected others to follow his company’s lead when it stepped up to provide logistics support to the Ukrainian people after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.
“You do the right thing hoping others will follow and honestly in this case no one did,” he said after describing deliveries of critical shipments under Russian attack. “We thought that by doing that, delivering this and letting people know, others would follow, but in truth it got much tougher.”
Logistics Plus, a shipping, warehousing and logistics company which operates in 55 countries around the world, expanded its operations in Ukraine after tanks rolled across the border in 2022. It bought another logistics company in Kyiv and opened an office in the Black Sea port of Odesa, Berlin said.
“From day one we were finding ways to get medical supplies, humanitarian goods, Starlinks, anything that’s needed over there,” he told an audience in Washington after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
“You have to be creative; there were no rules for how to get it in during a war; we found ways to do that,” he said. “You do the right thing no matter what.”
In one of his company’s most dramatic achievements, Berlin oversaw the delivery of 100,000 tons of steel pipe for Ukraine’s oil and gas industry while under fire. The shipment was uninsured because the premiums were too high, and was only possible because a Turkish captain agreed to sail into the war zone, he said.
“We were bringing ships into a harbor under attack; you’ve got to unload them, deliver them on hundreds of trucks to different well sites,” he said. “That’s logistics. And we pulled it off.”
Berlin, who was on the ground while the shipment was being unloaded, said he has been inspired on his trips to Ukraine by the commitment and bravery of his Ukrainian colleagues.
“You see these people working with missiles flying overhead, and they’re unloading a ship,” he said. “Even our office workers, they work all day, they go home, they’ve got to walk up 20 flights of stairs to their apartments, then they have to go down the stairs to the basement when the bombs come, yet they show up for work every day.”
“I feel humbled by the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people.”
Thomas Penny is an editor and writer based in London. He has worked for local, national, and international news organizations, including the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg News, and CEPA, and is now a freelance specializing in international relations, politics, and conflict.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
