Spearfish Ukraine

Our mission is to provide a comprehensive duty of care to clients operating in fragile environments.

About us

For 15 years, Spearfish has been providing Duty of Care and security risk management solutions to the International Development Sector, Humanitarian and NGO communities across the globe. We have had a presence in Ukraine since 2022 and established a permanent subsidiary in 2023. While we maintain a presence in Kyiv, our operations centre is in Dnipro. This gives us proximity to humanitarian field offices and staff, allowing us to better support their needs.

We focus heavily on Duty of Care- the obligations organisations owe to their staff and partners, both legal and moral, written and unwritten. Duty of Care is especially important in Fragile and Conflict Affected States (FCAS), where staff and partners are exposed to high-risk environments to deliver their organisations’ humanitarian objectives.

We value localisation- our subsidiary is a fully-registered Ukrainian company and our team are overwhelmingly Ukrainian nationals. We will always pursue a 50:50 gender balance, ensuring we get the best talent and a complete portfolio of experience.

Our Services

Within our product lineup our services include;

Training - Prepare your staff and partners with essential skills through our training programmes, including Hostile Environment Awareness Training, First Aid and Trauma Care, and a diverse array of certifications such as those from Highfield, the European Resuscitation Council, and Stop the Bleed.

Duty of Care Centre - an online subscription service offering a worldwide Security Risk Assessment library, covering each Oblast in Ukraine, a live Global Risk Map and country specific daily Risk Alerts and detailed Spot Reports delivered to your phone. Sign up today

Overwatch - Our integrated services encompass online travel form management, information analysis, risk assessment, pre-travel briefings, travel planning, in-country messaging, and secure ground transport.

Consultancy - covering Security Management Frameworks, Hibernation, Relocation, and Evacuation (HRE) planning, Security Design and Engineering, as well as thorough Security Audits.

Response - We work with you before an incident to ensure that your emergency procedures are fit for purpose and work along side you to manage an unfolding crisis.

Training

Prepare your staff and partners with essential skills through our training programmes, including Hostile Environment Awareness Training, First Aid and Trauma Care, and a diverse array of certifications such as those from Highfield, the European Resuscitation Council, and Stop the Bleed.

Spearfish Ukraine HEAT Video

Hostile Environment Awareness Training

Our HEAT courses equip staff and partners with enough skills and experience to facilitate working in high-risk areas. With over 15 years’ experience in delivering HEAT courses, Spearfish draws on only the best instructors, an extensive range of equipment, contextualised scenarios and intuitive teaching materials to ensure each student gets the most from their training.

Open and private courses

Most of our courses are delivered to individual organisations through private courses. This allows Spearfish to understand the organisation’s needs and role in theatre and deliver a tailored course, incorporating their unique SOPs into the training programme. Private courses allow for flexibility in the syllabus, course length, certifications, training location, student numbers and so on. Occasionally, we will provide open courses with a fixed syllabus. This allows smaller organisations to book individual slots for staff and partners without requiring the budget commitment for a private course.

Course Content

Spearfish Ukraine Training Venue - Dummy Tank

Spearfish HEAT courses use both classroom and outdoor, scenario-based training to deliver a simple-to-complex approach. We don’t drop our students in at the deep end; we use progressive building blocks to ensure students develop the correct skills and behaviours.

Examples of our training modules include: first aid, mine awareness, understanding risk and mitigation, communications, CBRN, cyber security, using an AED, route planning, journey management, checkpoint procedures.

Our scenarios are immersive and designed to replicate critical incidents relevant to Ukraine. They add an element of controlled stress to build students’ confidence and aid lesson recall. We use well-trained role players and an extensive range of equipment, such as pyrotechnics, blank-firing and dummy weapons, vehicles, costumes, wound moulage, sound effects and smoke.

Locations

We have two training sites in Kyiv and Dnipro where we regularly deliver courses. Both are outside the city and have private, enclosed training areas and high-quality classrooms. Catering is provided on all our courses, and accommodation is available for those who need it. We understand that organisations may require training at other locations. For our private courses, we are happy to offer training in different cities where suitable facilities are available.

open course dates

private course Enquires

First Aid Training

Our First Aid courses equip students with the skills necessary to deal with casualties in the field, at home or at work. Our instructors are qualified emergency medicine doctors with extensive training experience. We maintain a wide range of equipment, including AED trainers, resuscitation dolls, catastrophic bleed simulators, tourniquets and bandages, nasopharyngeal airway simulators and training IFAKs. We can offer both certified and bespoke courses.

Certified courses:

· Basic Life Support (European Resuscitation Council)- 1 Day

· Stop the Bleed (American College of Surgeons)- 1 Day

· Level 2 BLS and Use of an AED (Highfield)- 1 Day

Bespoke courses:

On private courses we can deliver bespoke programmes of varying length, including scenario-based training and role players in a HEAT-style programme. The courses are certified by Spearfish and can include the certificates listed under our certified courses.

The Team

**Charlie - Country Manager**
Charlie joined Spearfish after 6 years with the OSCE in Ukraine, patrolling the front line as part of the ceasefire monitoring mission, based primarily in Donetsk and Mariupol. He previously served in the British Army (Parachute Regiment Reserve) including operations in Afghanistan. He holds a Master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College, London, where he wrote his dissertation on the Ukraine conflict in 2014. He completed the Security Risk Management Consultancy course at the Emergency Planning College (York, UK) in 2022. He also studied Russian language and is improving his Ukrainian.

Kateryna - Medical Instructor

Kateryna is an emergency medicine doctor, with 10 years’ experience both on ambulances and in hospital emergency departments. She holds instructor qualifications in Stop the Bleed, Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support, Paediatric Basic Life Support, International Trauma Life Support and Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support. Following the 2022 invasion, Kateryna joined MOAS as a doctor, providing medical evacuations and intensive care to those wounded on the front line. She graduated from Dnipro State Medical University.

Oleksii - Lead Instructor

Oleksii has over 6 years’ experience as an emergency doctor, attending critical trauma patients as part of an ambulance crew. He also previously worked for the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Centre of Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine. He holds instructor credentials for “Stop the Bleed” (American College of Surgeons) and “Basic Life Support” (European Resuscitation Council). Prior to joining Spearfish, Oleksii was a Team Leader at MOAS, providing medical care and evacuations for critical patients from the front line. Oleksii graduated from the Bukovinian State Medical University. Oleksii is keen on bushcraft and fishing

Yuliia - Mine Action Officer

Yuliia has over 8 years’ experience in humanitarian mine action from the HALO Trust, UN, ICRC and other INGOs. She has led capacity-building and policy development programmes for state and civil society actors in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine. She is an experienced programme manager with a wide portfolio of communication and risk-reduction projects and has EOD training from the Danish Demining Group and Danish Refugee Council. She also holds a Master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development from King’s College, London.

Daria - Mine Action Officer

Daria is a former Senior Program Officer at The HALO Trust, leading a large portfolio of projects focused on clearance of explosive remnants, identification of contaminated areas and on outreach on risks and safe behaviour related to explosive ordnance. Daria previously worked on a variety of research projects for a Swiss organization IMPACT Initiatives in Somalia and Bangladesh and has several years of experience in project management in the humanitarian sector, including training design and delivery. Daria holds a certification on Non-Technical Survey by Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD

Ivan - Logistics Officer

Ivan has over 20 years’ experience in the catering and hospitality industry, specialising in procurement, HR and customer relations. He draws on years of military experience, both pre- and post-2022, including four operational tours of the Caucasus and Central Asia. He has a degree in Electronic Computing from Kyiv Polytechnic University and is a keen skydiver.