Sergey Lebedev was an extroverted, sharp-witted, friendly, yet ambitious man who did not match the stereotype of an eccentric scientist. Despite his birth and education in Russia, Lebedev made an unconventional strategic decision. He turned down a promising offer in Moscow and relocated to Ukraine to lead the prominent Kyiv Electrotechnical Institute (KEI) of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (1946-1951).

Kyiv was an influential scientific center at that time. Located farther from the stale bureaucracy of Moscow, it was a more liberal and open-minded city, which attracted scientists with more flexibility to experiment. The KEI's qualified personnel significantly contributed to implementing novel cybernetics ideas.

In 1948 Lebedev discovered from foreign magazines that Western researchers were working on an electronic computer design, albeit the details were secret. But that was enough. Same autumn, he established KEIs' Lab #1 in the suburbs of Kyiv. The sole focus of dozens of its lab workers was on designing a computer.