Ukrainians have called on the Toptal freelancer platform not to work with Russians. During the week, the company did not respond to them

The Washington Post published stories of Ukrainian freelancers who work on the Toptal platform and urge the company's management not to be silent about the war in Ukraine.

The American company Toptal works with freelancers from hundreds of countries, including Ukraine and Russia. The company evaluates the technical and communication skills of specialists, and then offers their services to interested clients and receives a percentage for this.

Ukrainian UI designer Kateryna Korolenko collaborates with Toptal on a part-time basis. After the outbreak of the war, she asked to pay her funds in a single transfer (and not for several payments every week, as usual). However, I received no response. But the saddest thing, according to Korolenko, is that Toptal does not want to openly condemn the war.

Korolenko and other members of the Ukrainian team posted an appeal to Toptal on Linkedin with a request to voice their position and not work with the Russian Federation. The text notes that Toptal moderators blocked the Slack accounts of Ukrainian team members who openly talk about the war. But the company does not notice posts from Russian users that justify the actions of the invaders.

The authors also recalled that other freelance services like Upwork and Payoneer have already stopped all business operations in Russia. The letter was published on March 7, but the company did not respond during the week.

Senior Data Scientist Nazari Perepichka works with Toptal as a contractor. He says that he was aware of the disadvantages of working as a contractor, but did not think about the risks of working during the war. He lives in the western part of Ukraine and goes down to shelter during air alarms — sometimes 5 or 6 times a day. After supporting the LinkedIn community appeal, Toptal informed customers that Nazari is no longer working with them.

The company says that Toptal does not work with Russian clients and is trying to speed up payments to employees from Ukraine. However, he does not respond to their letter and continues to cooperate with freelancers from Russia.

Toptal also confirmed that due to violations of the rules, moderators blocked several Ukrainian employees in Slack and issued two warnings to employees from Russia.