Naftogaz Group has cut its capital expenditures by 44.5% last year, to $54 million, from $99 million. The biggest area, exploration and production, fell by 26%, to $39 million. Oil and gas production by Naftogaz, the nation’s largest producer, has been stagnant for the last several y...
PricewaterhouseCoopers was won the contract, which is valued close to $2 million to audit the Naftogaz Group’s financial statements for 2021 and 2022 , the state company has reported. The Cabinet of Ministers made the choice after reviewing results of a ProZorro competition. In addition to auditing the accounts of nearly 30 companies of the Group, ...
Russia’s recent military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border has re-focused Washington’s attention on the potential perils of the Nord Stream 2 Russia-Germany Baltic sea gas line, Diane Francis writes in a new Atlantic Council blog. Noting that Russia hopes to finish the 1,230 km project this summer, this veteran Ukraine watcher warns that commissioning “would also remove a maj...
In a different kind of complaint about a Ukrainian state company Supervisory Board, Richard Deitz, President of London-based VR Capital Group, charges that the Ukrzaliznytsia board has failed to act decisively to negotiate a deal for debt obligations VR bought two years ago from Prom...
Kyiv lifts its strict lockdown Saturday, opening the Metro to all riders, allowing indoor restaurant dining, and opening shopping centers, gyms and open-air markets. The opening comes in time for Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated on Sunda...
The opening comes as Kyiv still records about 1,000 new coronavirus cases a day, Mayor Klitschko reports. Among the reported cases, 40% are men and 60% are women. On a national scale, 9,590 new cases were reported yesterday, half the level of the peaks in early April.
Officially, there have been 2 million cases of coronavirus in Ukraine over the last year. However, in a UNICEF survey of 2,027 Ukrainian adults interviewed by cell phone in April, 22% of respondents said they had fallen sick with coronavirus. If this percentage is applied to Ukraine’s adul...
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Kyiv in May as part of preparations for a Biden-Putin summit this summer, CNN has reported, citing a Ukrainian government official. Blinken has already spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, several times since taking office in January, including two weeks ago ... #BidenPutinSummit #JoeBiden #Putin #RussianAgression
Ukraine will supply gas turbine engines for Turkey’s new ATAK-II combat helicopters, reported the Ukrainian Military Portal. The 11-ton helicopters will be twice as large as current attack helicopters now produced by Turkey. Temel Kotil, General Director of Turkish Aerospace Industrie... #Atak2Engines #TurbineEngines #UkraineTurkey
Starting tomorrow, Turkey is requiring that everyone stay at home under a nationwide ‘full lockdown’. This current lockdown will lasts until May 17 to curb a surge in coronavirus. Although intercity travel will be largely banned, destination tourism will continue, under heightened health controls. #Covid19Turkey #TurkeyLockdown
With Russia withdrawing troops, but leaving tanks and ships , Ukraine has asked Germany for anti-ship missiles and old corvettes, Germany’s dw.com news site reported Saturday. Separately, the Rada committees on defense, infrastructure and foreign relations wan... #RussiaandUkraine #RussianMilitary #RussianTroops
Denmark is targeting Ukraine for a ‘nearshoring’ initiative – bringing factories and outsourcing work closer to home, to Eastern Europe. The move is prompted partly by the Covid epidemic reducing the mobility of Ukrainian workers and restricting Danish manager... #Denmarkfactories #UkraineandDenmark
Russia has closed for three more sections of the Black Sea near Crimea for six months of ‘training exercises ’, Ria Novosti has reported from Moscow, citing Russia’s Defense Ministry. Ten days ago, Russia closed the southern approaches to the Kerch Strait to foreign navies and foreign governments through the... #BlackSeaUnderRussianControl #RussiansinBlackSea
This fall Ukrainian Navy officers will take part in Turkey’s Dogu Akdeniz 2021 naval exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean , reported Ukraine’s military news site, ArmiyaInform. The Ukrainians are to be stationed aboard Turkey’s Ada-class corvettes. In coming days, Turkey and Ukraine are to sign a contract for joint produ... #TurkeyUkraine #UkrainianNavy
Romania and Ukraine are ready to start a ‘strategic relationship, ’ Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said yesterday after meeting his Romanian counterpart, Bogdan Aurescu, in Bucharest. “Ukraine seeks to officially start a strategic partnership with Romania,... #RomaniaandUkraine #RomaniaUkraine
By the end of this year, as many as one million Ukrainians living in Russia-controlled Donbas will receive Russian passports, said Viktor Vodolatsky, the Deputy chair of Russia’s Duma Committee on CIS Affairs and Eurasian Integration (TASS). “Today, 538,000 people living in the territory of Donbas are citizens of the Russian... #Donbas #DonbasUkraine #RussianPassportsforDonbas
YouTube has blocked three pro-Russian channels that President Zelenskiy shut down three months ago . After Zelenskiy ordered the channels off the air, and sanctioned their reputed owner Viktor Medvedchuk, the channels — 112 Ukraine, NewsOne and ZIK — reappeared on YouTube. As of last ni... #112UkraineChannel #NewsOnechannel #ProRussianTV #ZIKchannel
By June 1, the EU plans to implement a uniform vaccination certificate that will allow free movement by EU citizens within the bloc . “We can guarantee that the system will be operational by the summer season,” EU Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said Thursday. Available in paper or digital form, it will c... #covid19 #CovidUkraine #Vacciantion
Today, 35 years after a nuclear fire destroyed a reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine is seeking to have the nuclear power plant and the surrounding exclusion zone declared a UNESCO World Heritage site. As a first step, the government is moving to have the site – and a neighboring Soviet era radar – declared a national monument. “The importance of the Chernobyl zone lays far beyond Ukraine’s bo... #Chernobyl #ChernobylUkraine
Ukraine’s GDP warrants and Eurobonds reacted positively to news yesterday that Russia will start to withdraw its troops from Ukraine’s borders . Warrants jumped from 102.5% to 104.4%, and Eurobonds rose by 0.8-2.3 percentage points, depending on maturity dates. #Bondmarket #eurobonds #GDPwarrants
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared military drills near Ukraine to be over and that units would be withdrawn to their bases in central and eastern Russia. Anticipating more drills later this year, he said soldiers would leave large weapons in place, largely in Pogonovo firin... #RussianAgression #RussianArmyatUkraineBorder
Prime Minister Shmygal is asking government agencies to facilitate more tourist flights to Turkey and to facilitate visits here of Turkish tourists with Covid-19 vaccination certificates. According to the government portal, the Prime Minister calls for “organizing additional flights on popular rou... #FlightstoTurkey #MinisterShmygal
With Belarus increasingly coordinating its military policies with Russia, Ukraine is slapping a 35% duty on MAZ trucks and buses, a move expected to end their import into Ukraine. Belarus’ state-owned Minsk Automobile Plant, or MAZ, has been a major supplier of city buses and oversized trucks for mining operations in Ukraine. Uk... #BelarusandUkraine #BelarusianBusses #BelarusianTrucks
The first of seven state-owned flour mills is to be privatized through auction on May 7 , the State Property Fund reports. Often called ‘bakeries’ these Soviet-era complexes mill wheat and corn into flour and animal feed. Located alongside railroad tracks, the seven ‘kombinats’ have elev... #BigPrivatization #FlourMills #StatePropertyFund
After two months of declines, industrial production grew in March, recording a 2.1% increase, the State Statistics Service reports. The March growth was not big enough to offset declines in January and February. The first quarter was down 2% yoy. Last year, industria...
Bankers are optimistic about lending prospects for the next 12 months , according to the National Bank of Ukraine’s quarterly survey. Of credit managers polled, 78% predict an increase in the loan portfolio of corporations, 82% predicted an increase in loans to househol...
Today, FlixBus inaugurates a 30-hour, 2,300 km bus route – from Lviv to Montpellier, on France’s Mediterranean coast . “Despite serious restrictions for travelers, economic and social ties between Ukraine and Europe are strong today,” said Michal Leman, regional director for the Munich-based bus company. “We see the...
Diesel fuel supplies to Ukrzaliznytsia are resuming, the state railroad reported yesterday. Earlier this week, UZ warned that it would run out of diesel on Friday. After diesel prices increased this year, suppliers did not want to fulfill long term cont...
Fifteen business associations appealed to the government yesterday to vaccinate “the part of the population that really wants to get it.” Lead by the European Business Association, the appeal argues: “The sooner the Ukrainian population receives full protection against the virus,...
The government plans to fully vaccinate 11 million adults – about one third of the total — by the end of this year, according to an officially approved blueprint issued yesterday by the 2021 National COVID-19 Preventive Vaccination Plan. By this summer, the Health Ministry plans to perform 5.65 million vaccinations...
A full scale outbreak of fighting in the Donbas appears unlikely, “despite the Russian tanks being ferried toward the border,” the International Crisis Group concludes in a new, 3,000-word analysis. The Brussels-based group writes: “Troop numbers and postures, altho...
President Putin delivered an aggressive, anti-Western state of the nation address yesterday, a speech that focused more on an alleged coup plot against Aleksandr Lukashenko than on Ukraine. “You can think what you want of Lukashenko, but an assassination plan is too much,” Putin said. “It is ...
The US will displace Ukraine as China’s top source of corn this year as predicted on the China’s Global Times news website. In the first two months of this year, China’s corn imports increased by 414% yoy, to 4.8 million tons. The US pulled ahead of Ukraine, largely du... #agroUkraine #CornExport #UkrainianCorn
April’s soaking rains and a good start to the spring sowing campaign lead Economy Ministry analysts to predict a bumper grain crop of 75 million tons in 2021. This would be 15% over last year’s output. State weather forecasters said last month around 98% of Ukrainian winter wheat crops and 100% of winter barley were in good condition. #agroUkraine #GrainHarvest2021 #GrainUkraine #Harvest2021
Ukraine has passed the peak of its third coronavirus wave, said Maksym Stepanov, Health Minister, in a press conference yesterday. Last week, there were 3,500 fewer hospitalizations than the previous week. In the nation, hospitals in the capital, Kyiv, had th... #covid19ukraine #CovidUkraine #vaccination
Satellite photos of Crimea show “airborne troops, motorized rifle and armored units, attack helicopters, smoke generators, reconnaissance drones, jamming equipment and a military hospital, ’’ according to The Wall Street Journal. Headlined “Satellite Images Show Russia’s Expanding Ukraine Buildup”, the article is accompanied by photos taken between March 27 and April 16 by Maxar Technol... #RussiaandUkraine #RussianMilitaryatUkraineBorder #UkraineMilitary
Russia’s naval exercises cover 27% of the Black Sea, according an Axios story that cites “an internal document from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.” “Russia has been holding last-minute military exercises near commercial shipping lanes in the Black... #RussiaatBlackSea #RussiaControlsBlackSea #RussianAgression #RussianmiitaryinCrimea
Russia has blocked the airspace over Crimea and parts of the Black Sea through Saturday, Interfax has reported from Moscow, citing an official NOTAM, or international ‘notice to airmen.’ NOTAM said yesterday, “The area has been declared temporarily dangerous for aircraft flights.” Russia ... #RussiaandUkraine #RussianAgression #RussianMilitary #RussianMilitaryMovements
Squeezed by Russia and Belarus, Ukrzaliznytsia has only enough diesel to run trains through Friday , the State Railroad provider reported yesterday. About half of the railroad’s 20,000 km of track is electrified. UZ moves 82% of Ukraine’s freight, making it the fourth largest freight carrier in Eur... #DieselforUkraine #DieselImport #ShortageofDiesel
The EBRD is also lending $57 million to the Kernel Group to improve the storage, transportation and export of agricultural commodities , the bank reported in a press release. The loan is part of a $200 million syndication arranged by French investment bank Natixis for Kernel, the world’s leading producer and exporter of sunflow... #agroUkraine #ebrd #Kernel #KernelGroup
Last week the Rada made progress on one key IMF demand: restoring jail terms for officials who fail to fully declare their assets. Last October the Constitutional Court called an earlier law allowing for jail terms ‘excessive’ and struck it down. The new bill must be approved in final reading to be signed into law. #CorruptioninUkraine #IMFdeal #IMFmission
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, yesterday announced that 150,000 Russian troops are concentrated on Ukraine’s eastern border and in Crimea . Noting that the deployment includes field hospitals, he warned that only “a spark” could set off a conflict. On Saturday, four large landing ships from Russia’s Baltic and Northern fleets entered th... #RussiaandUkraine #RussianAgression #RussianArmyatUkraineBorder
PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank, will put up for sale ‘soon,’ announced Kyrylo Shevchenko, the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, (GlobalCapital). “The privatization of PrivatBank, which owns 20% of the Ukrainian banking market, will be of interest to the... #BankingUkraine #PrivatBank #privatizationofPrivatBank
The World Steel Association has predicted that Global steel demand is to increase by 6% yoy. Investment worldwide in delayed infrastructure projects will be a boon to Ukraine, which produces 20 million tons of steel a year, placing it 13th place worldwide in production output. China, which co... #SteelFromUkraine #Steelproduction #UkraineSteel
Within the next year, work is to start on a ‘futuristic’ bus station for Kyiv’s Boryspil airport, reported Avianews. Designed by Kyiv’s Raden architectural firm, the station with a white cloud roof will be located next to the Kyiv Borispol Express train platform, adjacent to Terminal D. The statio... #futuristicbusstation #KyivBoryspil
Ukraine’s security chief believes the downing of the UIA jet by Iran’s military over Tehran in January 2020 was intentional, rather than an accident as claimed by Iran’s government. “When they say this was accidental, I don’t buy that,” said Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense council, in an interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail that was pub... #UIAflight #UIAflighttoIRAN
The US Federal Aviation Administration has warned US airlines Saturday to “exercise extreme caution when flying into, out of, within, or over” the Ukraine-Russia border airspace. Citing “potential safety-of-flight risks associated with escalating regional tensions” the warn... #FlightsoverUkraine #FlightstoRussia
Kyiv City authorities have launched a new database and map showing the location of reinforced underground vaults that can be used as bomb shelters in the case of a Russian air raid on the capital. The map is best navigated by a Ukrainian language speaker. In the past, Kyiv authorities have said the city has 3,000 underground locations, including... #KyivVaults
Nord Stream 2, the nearly completed Russia-Germany gas line, “is a matter of war,” President Zelenskiy said to Le Figaro newspaper prior to his meeting Friday with President Macron in Paris. “This is not a matter of business,” he said of the $10 billion trans-Baltic pipeline which i... #nordstream2 #RussiaGermanyGasLine
“Biden shows he will wield US financial system as foreign policy weapon, ” headlined a Financial Times article from Washington, based on interview with Biden Administration officials. These officials argued that last week’s sanctions against Russia should be seen as the fi... #USagainstRussia #USandRussia #ussanctions
