Partners news

Tuesday, June 1

Behind the Belarus cuts are not politics, but domestic needs, writes UNIAN. Anna Bredikhina wrote that Russia’s Rosneft and Surgutneftegaz are refusing to supply oil to Naftan, Belarus’ second refinery because of US sanctions that hit Naftan on Thursday. Brediki...

The average nominal salary in April 2021 was up almost 30% yoy, reaching the hryvnia equivalent of $493, reports that State Statistics Service. This is 2.3 times the minimum monthly wage of $218, a level largely used to set pensions. With Ukraine’s average salary ...

Of the 109 companies managed by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, 20 state companies are to be liquidates, 15 are to be reorganized and three are to be prepared for privatization , Deputy Defense Minister Ihor Khalimon tells Interfax-Ukraine. By the end of this year, he has predicted that the number of companies under the Defense Ministry will be cut to 42.

Svetlana Zalishchuk, the former journalist and Rada member for the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, has become an international affairs advisor to Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko . Targeting Nord Stream 2, she told the oil and gas company’s press department: “Ukraine still needs to win its battle against the Russian geopolitical pipeline. We are currently working on several sc...

Yulia Svyridenko, Deputy Presidential Chief of staff, has been chosen by the Cabinet of Ministers to represent the government on the Naftogaz Supervisory Board. She succeeds Robert Bensh, a Houston oil and gas executive. At the same Cabinet session, thre...

Winner Group, the US-owner car importer, has been awarded a €20 million loan from the EBRD to move into electric vehicles and to build Renault and Volvo dealerships. The low interest loan comes on the heels of Winner adding MG last month to ...

Of Ukrainians who plan to take a vacation this year, about half plan to vacation in Ukraine, according a telephone survey of 2,104 people taken in mid-May. With summer approaching, 53% said they planned to take a vacation in Ukraine. Of this group, 44.5% plan to travel outside their home regi...

Targeting regional airports, SkyUp is offering flights this summer from Zaporizhia to Batumi, Georgia; Istanbul, Turkey; Tirana, Albania; and Tivat, Montenegro . The discount airline also offers flights to Tivat from Kharkiv and Lviv. Before coronavirus disrupted travel patterns, UIA followed a spoke and hub strategy, forcing residents of regional capitals t...

Tomorrow Windrose airlines starts flying three times a week from Kyiv Boryspil to Uzhgorod . With this 2-hour, 627 km flight to the capital of Zakparpattia, Windrose emerges as Ukraine’s dominant domestic carrier, flying from Kyiv to 11 Ukrainian cities. The flight – ending a one-year suspe...

Aiming to return river cruises to the Dnipro, Kaniv, a port 130 km downriver from Kyiv, is to be reopened as a working port, Oleksandr Skichko, head of Cherkasy region, said after a meeting with Oleskandr Kozlovsky, head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority. The Infrastructure Ministry seeks to revive day boat trips from Ky...

Editor’s Note: Eagle-eyed Swedish reader, Fredrik Svinhufvud, writes that I erred on the size of the new turbine rotors that Vestas is building for DTEK. From tip to tip, they will be 162 meters. Imagine a 46-story ...

Monday, May 31

Oil traders worry that Belarus will cut off supplies of A-95 gasoline to Ukraine this week, enkorr, or energy correspondent news site, reports from Kyiv. Belarus supplies half of Ukraine’s needs for this premium unleaded gasoline. “Today we were advised that there would be no supplies of the...

Serhii Kuyun, director of the A-95 consulting group, wrote on Facebook Friday that the cut off is starting. “The worst decision that Belarusians could have taken in the current situation is to close the supply of A-95 gasoline to Ukraine, where their product has 50% of the market,” he wrote, noting that Ukr...

In response, officials for both sides said any shortages will be caused by scheduled repairs to the Mazyr refinery. Ukraine’s “policy of diversification of supplies will be strengthened,” Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s Trade Representative, promised on Facebook. “Don’t panic yet!”

For Belarus, an official told LB.ua on Friday: “There is no ban…but the volume will probably be reduced.” Sergei Melnikov, Deputy Director General in Ukraine for the Belarusian Oil Company, added: “This is due to the scheduled repair at the Mazyr ...

Worries over gas lines come as Belarus imposed on Friday licensing restrictions on a series of imports from Ukraine – ranging from toilet paper and beer to farm machinery and washing machines. With the curbs to take effect this weekend, Kachka, Ukraine’s Trade Representative: “Individual licensing regime means manu...

Belarus will lift the restrictions if Ukraine reciprocates by lifting its trade restrictions and its new ban on over flights by airplanes from Belarus, Alexander Guryanov, Belarus’ First Deputy Foreign Minister, told Radio Free Europe Friday. He said: “We are ready to completely repeal all our decisions, we are ready to restore the free trade regime ...

On Saturday, Ukraine banned over flights by planes from Belarus . Belavia, the state airline, says this ban adds 30-90 minutes to its flights south – to Israel, Turkey and Egypt, reports Avianews. The ban prompted Belavia to drop its flights to Moldova and Hungary...

US State Department is asking Congress for $255 million in aid to Ukraine for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. “U.S. assistance will strengthen Ukraine’s ability to counter Russian aggression, reads the Ukraine section in the 168-page Congressional Budget Justification. “Funding will accelerate reforms to addr...

Developing Ukraine’s stock market infrastructure will be the goal of an agreement to be signed this week by Ukrainian authorities with EBRD, USAID and the American Chamber of Commerce. “We are working on the development of the stock market infrastructure,” Prime Minister Shmygal said last week at the UkraineInvest Talks Dnipro International Investment Forum. “There is quite a lot of...

Tomorrow afternoon, Ukrzaliznytsia restarts international service with a daily Kyiv-Budapest-Vienna train , the state railroad reports. The 21-hour train comes after Ukraine’s third coronavirus wave has receded to about 3,000 new cases a day – one third the level of one month ago. Before buying tickets, t...

Editor’s Note: Bechtel Corporation’s experience with this part of the world got off to a bad start. In August, 1933, on a business trip to Moscow, Warren A. Bechtel, the company founder, died of an insulin overdose....

Friday, May 28

Ukraine should mine its mountains of metallurgical slag and ash for road building materials, the European Business Association recommends in a new, 44-page study. Citing European experiences, the study says that by recycling these byproducts from steel manufacturing, Ukraine will cut industri...

AvtoKrAZ, or Kremenchuk Automobile Plant, has signed a three-year contract to supply heavy-duty trucks and tanker trucks to the US Army , the company reports. Ukraine’s only full-cycle manufacturer of heavy-duty vehicles, AvtoKrAZ specializes in particularly off-road, 4-wheel drive models.

Lyft, the second largest ridesharing company in the US after Uber, plans to open an R&D office in Kyiv and hire more than 80 engineers, reports Dou.ua. “Thanks to a large base of highly qualified specialists in the field of technology and a highly developed IT sector, Ukraine, and Kyiv in particular, is an ideal place for Lyft Enginee...

Belarus fell to seventh place among Ukraine’s trading partners for goods in the first quarter of this year, Ukraine’s Economy Ministry tells Ukrinform. For goods and services, Belarus accounted for 3.7% of Ukraine’s foreign trade in the January-March period. Trade has fall...

AirBaltic reports that flying around the airspace of Belarus will cost it €200,000 a month in extra fuel charges . 29 flights, or 8.1% of airBaltic’s total, will have to make the detour. Latvia’s national airline flies four times a week from Riga to Kyiv Boryspil and once a week to Odesa.

The creation of Ukraine’s national airline is a priority project, two government officials said yesterday. Prime Minister Shmygal said Oleksandr Kubrakov, the new Infrastructure Minister, has been told to “speed up negotiations” with foreign aircraft makers and fore...

The airline could be launched by the end of this year, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy presidential chief of staff, told Ukraina TV. With the national airline focused on domestic flights, Tymoshenko noted that the government’s ‘Big Construction’ project is buil...

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, a Cabinet Minister asked to be signed up to the UBN. I filled out the form. But, tell your friends and colleagues that it is very easy – just sign up here. Our readership grows steadily. An...

Thursday, May 27

The EU may place sanctions on Belarus exports of potash, the soil nutrient used to improve crops , Bloomberg has reported. One of the world’s largest suppliers of potash, Belarus supplies about 25% of the region’s demand. The legal framework for ‘targeted economic sanctions” are being drafted for...

With demand strong for workers, students and business executives to travel to Poland, UIA will restore its Kyiv Boryspil – Warsaw Chopin flight on June 18. LOT, Wizz Air, and Ryanair already have restored flights between Ukraine and Poland.

Next week, FlixBus, Europe’s largest bus company, will restore three bus lines from Ukraine to Poland. An estimated 1 million Ukrainians work in Poland. Remittances from Ukrainians working abroad total $1 billion a month, making labor Ukraine’s second largest export, after food.

Editor’s Note: On April 30, the European Parliament passed a resolution saying: if Russia invades Ukraine, Russia will be cut off from the SWIFT system of international payments. A Belgian ‘cooperative society’ base...

Wednesday, May 26

For Ukrainians seeking to fly to Russia, Riga and airBaltic are expected to displace Minsk and Belavia. “The added inconvenience of flying via the Baltic region or alternative connecting hubs will likely result in a further reduction in people traveling between Ukraine and Russia,” Peter Dickinson write...

With almost all European airlines boycotting Belarus air space, Ukraine hopes to get some of the East-West overflight traffic, Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s new Infrastructure Minister, said yesterday. Due to the EU reaction to Sunday’s forced landing of the Ryanair passenger jet in Minsk, Belarus now faces losing $50-70 million a year in overflight fees. Last week, only 20% of the 3...

With cargo flights also subject to the bans, Ukrposhta plans to deliver mail and parcels to Belarus – about 10,000 a month – by truck. For ground passenger travel, the trip from Kyiv to Minsk, takes 10 hours by train and 12 hours by bus. Partly ...

Belavia, a state-owned airline, has suspended its London and Paris flights for five months. But it is unclear how long the flight bans will remain. Dickinson writes for the Atlantic Council: “Given the unpredictability of the Belarus dictator, it is difficult to imagine a set of circumstance...

Outrage over the forcing down of the Ryanair Boeing may bring more economic sanctions against Belarus. Mykhailo Volynets, an influential Rada member, called on Ukraine’s government to speed up a planned phaseout of electricity imports from Belarus. From London, Bloomberg editorialized yesterday: “Sanct...

Timothy Ash, the emerging market analyst at BlueBay Asset Management wrote: “On Belarus sanctions, there does seem to be momentum now for really consequential economic sanctions, both from the Europeans and the US.”

Russia’s foreign minister has tut-tutted Turkey for “fueling Kyiv’s militaristic sentiment,” Reuters reports. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments to Argumenty i Fakty newspaper on Monday came after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan last month pledged support to Kyiv amid the massive buil...

Seeking to get Ukraine’s weapons sales to Pakistan back on track, Ukroboronprom demonstrated the newest Oplot tank and the Skif anti-tank system last week in Kharkiv to Pakistani General Qamar Javed Bajwa. The de facto ‘CEO of Pakistan’, Gen. Bajwa is army chief of ...

Ukraine increased steel production by 7.2% during the same period, to 7.1 million tons. Giving production a big boost, Ukraine’s steel production was up 38% yoy in April. Today, Ukraine is the world’s 13th largest steel producer, according to the World Steel Association.

The Finance Ministry raised $217 million in hryvnia at yesterday’s bond auction, less than half the amount raised last week. In the auction for five bonds, yields were virtually unchanged, the Ministry reported on Facebook. The biggest sellers were 1-year bonds, at 11.2%, and 3-year bonds, at 12.3%.

Editor’s Note: The Women’s Business Chamber of Ukraine opens its Kyiv office next week. Founded two years ago in Lviv, the chamber has grown to almost 200 members nationwide. Key objectives are to promote women̵...

Tuesday, May 25

After direct Ukraine-Russia flights were banned in 2015, Belavia boosted its revenues by flying Ukrainians on one-hour hops from Kyiv to Minsk and then on to any of 15 airports in Russia. Last year, Belavia made the third largest number of flights out of Uk...

European Union leaders meeting in Brussels last night called for Belavia to be banned from the 27-nation bloc’s airspace and urged EU-based carriers to avoid flying through Belarus airspace , Reuters reports. Earlier, Lithuania, and Poland instructed airlines to detour around Belarus. This means that Belarus’ three Western neighbors no longer have flights to Minsk. Britain is instructing...

Fueling the swift reaction was the fear that, if unanswered, the forced landing of the Ryanair passenger jet could set a precedent for future interference with civil aviation.

“This was a case of state-sponsored hijacking, ” Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, told RTE Radio. O’Leary said a total of five people failed to re-board the plane in Minsk, for Vilnius. They were: the journalist, Roman Pr...

Max Boot warns in a Washington Post opinion piece about “a rapid erosion of international norms as rogue states find they can do what they want…The force-down of the Ryanair flight must be seen in this perspective — not as an isolated incident but as part ...