Nova Poshta connects frontline cities to the capital, and to millions of refugees across Europe, delivering everything from home comforts to house moving boxes, even under fire

In a post office 10 miles (15km) from Ukraine’s frontline, in a suburb of the eastern city of Kharkiv, business is brisk on a chilly autumn morning – despite the ballistic missiles that had shaken the city at midnight, lighting up the sky with a false dawn of flames.

The customer area is fitted out with phone-charging stations “and a small co-working space, which people can use during blackouts, since we have generators”, says the branch manager, 30-year-old Yaroslav Dobronos. There is also a changing room, in which a young woman is trying on, with a critical gaze, a new pair of jeans, before repacking them and sending them straight back.

Nova Poshta logistics hub in Kyiv, where packages are moved through a complex set of scanners and chutes before being loaded on to lorries for the journey to their destinations