Sergii Koltsov was on the road in Austria as a truck driver when Russia invaded his homeland on Feb. 24, 2022. His wife and young daughter were home in Mukachevo, Western Ukraine, when the air raid sirens went off.
They were over 350 miles apart and separated by war. Now they had to figure out how to reunite anyplace but home.
As it turned out, home now is the Buffalo area. Koltsov and his family were able to relocate with the help of a new company created by another immigrant who settled in Buffalo to help displaced people find jobs in other countries.
The company, Joblio, is an app and labor marketing platform founded by Jon Purizhansky, an immigration lawyer whose family fled Belarus and landed in Buffalo when he was 16. Its aim is to help businesses find needed workers from around the world and help migrants resettle and succeed in good jobs smoothly and legally.