Search for Ukrainian work permit categories and you will still find the same list everywhere: highly paid foreign professionals, IT specialists, company founders and beneficial owners, graduates of the world's top-ranked universities, creative and sporting professionals, seconded staff and intra-corporate transferees. It reads like a menu of privileged routes, each with its own salary test and validity period. Much of that list describes the law as it stood before October 2022, and the gap between it and the current regime is where employers lose time.