Business news, entrepreneurship and startups in Kyiv region
The supervisory board of Ukrhydroenergo has completed the competition for the position of general director. The acting head of the company won the contest — a person who has already led the company during one of the most difficult periods for Ukrainian energy sector.
Patrick Fragman and Brice Buyuon, two of four foreign independent members of the new supervisory board, have resigned. The international experts appointed by the Cabinet after the "Midasgate" corruption scandal were simply not paid by the state.
On the night of May 14, Russia launched one of its most powerful attacks on Kyiv: 670+ drones and 56 missiles, damaging 20 locations. Targets included the office of intelligence drone manufacturer Skyeton, two business centers, and Kharkov shopping center. Three killed, 40 wounded.
An international criminal network was transferring ships to Russia through neutral waters — without documents, without beacons. The detained individual is one link in a chain that was supplying the fleet financing the war.
Capital police shut down an underground workshop producing counterfeit alcohol. The seized alcohol is valued at 4.7 million hryvnias. Behind these figures lies a systemic problem that no single operation can solve.
On December 27, an attack on Kyiv damaged the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Station, thermal power plants TEC-5, TEC-6, Darnytskyy TEC, and Trypilska TEC simultaneously. Approximately 500,000 families in the capital and 320,000 consumers in the Kyiv region were left without electricity.
# Japanese Automaker Cancels Three EV Models Months Before Production Launch A Japanese automaker has cancelled three electric vehicle models just months before planned production was set to begin. Despite the Ohio plant being completed and battery manufacturing facilities fully operational, the vehicles will not be produced. This is not a strategic revision, but rather an acknowledgment that losses from launching production would exceed losses from shutting down operations.
Ukraine's only uranium concentrate producer has been staving off bankruptcy through a series of moratoriums for years. Corporatization is an attempt to restart the enterprise through integration with Energoatom, but the mechanism for attracting investments has not yet been defined.
Volkswagen's plant in Osnabrück may stop assembling convertibles and begin producing chassis for Israel's air defense system. The key obstacle is not morality or Berlin, but the works council.
The "Eurotech" group is ceasing operations of all its retail networks. Arsen, which survived two crises and a pandemic, could not withstand the third blow.
On May 13, depots, bridges, and rolling stock were damaged in seven regions. Two railway workers were killed in Zdolbuniv — not at their workplaces, but simply in the city.
AKIA has delivered the hundredth trolleybus body to Ukraine, but the final product — PTS T12309 — is assembled by the Chernihiv company "Politechnoservice" with its own electronics and 40% localization. During the full-scale war, this model has become the de facto standard for Ukrainian cities.
In May, oil imports from Russia to India reached 2.3 million barrels per day — an absolute record. Behind it stands not only cheap oil, but also the May 16 deadline and fears of being left without supplies after the strike on Iran.
Manufacturers and suppliers have already cut 100,000 employees since 2019 — and this is just the beginning. According to an updated VDA forecast, the industry will lose another 125,000 jobs, and the reason is not only electric vehicles.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz collapsed global oil supplies by 10 million barrels per day in March. An emergency release of 400 million barrels from reserves represents four days of global consumption.
On May 16–17, the capital of Kazakhstan will open Central Asia's first fully automated elevated railway — after two decades of construction, criminal convictions and a frozen project that had become an urban meme.
Developer Abandons 91-Story Trump International Complex on Golden Shore — Trump's Name Became a Problem, Not an Advantage.
The Director of the Bureau of Economic Security acknowledged that the state is stuck between two options: either legalize the electronic cigarette market with proper taxation, or impose a direct ban. There is no more gray area — only profitable chaos remains.
Roshen earned 7.9 billion hryvnias in net profit — accounting for almost the entire result of the industry among 272 companies. This is not merely market leadership, but structural concentration that has accelerated due to the war.
The competitive dialogue tender commission has launched a 75-day competitive dialogue with investors regarding two terminals at the Port of Chornomorsk — Ukraine's largest port PPP project in history is proceeding without mandatory electronic bidding oversight.
HLIBNY DAR, which annually ranks in the TOP-5 global sales of strong spirits, has released two infusions at 37.5% strength for its 24th anniversary — this is not merely a product line expansion, but a strategic move targeting an audience for whom traditional vodka no longer holds appeal.
Avtostrada owner Maksym Shkil warned that without debt repayment, the company may halt work — just as Prime Minister Svyrydenko publicly promised to complete repairs on all roads in the country within three weeks.
Agencies linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have outlined three steps to transform the strait into a "digital lever of pressure": licenses, annual payments, and a monopoly on servicing. The legal basis is UNCLOS, which Iran signed but never ratified.
Since summer 2025, assets of Cargill, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Flex, Mondelez, Philip Morris, and Bunge have come under attack. The White House has not publicly condemned any of the attacks — instead, it asked Kyiv not to strike a Russian terminal where American interests are present.
Ukrainian IT company Jiji has entered the Bangladesh market in March 2025 and already acquired Bikroy within a year — a platform it had planned to compete against. The first deal outside Africa opens up a market of 170 million people for the company.
Drones, regulator ban and weather struck simultaneously at Russia's main Black Sea oil port — and it's already reflected in budget revenues.
# Translation: After the cancellation of the PSO in March took hundreds of megawatts of gas generation offline, the regulator introduced a price cap on gas for power plants in nine frontline regions — those that balance the grid where repair crews cannot always reach.
ARCA Baltics Operations will build a plant in Pīģa-Ķīvīoli for the production of 155-mm artillery shells — but its founder still has not shed the shadow of a NATO corruption case that the United States closed without explanation.
The European Commission has preliminarily found TikTok in violation of the Digital Services Act due to infinite scrolling and autoplay features. Von der Leyen stated that Instagram and Facebook are also under pressure for failing to comply with their own 13-year-old age threshold.
40 passengers were evacuated in an open field near Kosary — and this is no longer an isolated incident: in 2024, there were 22 fires at Ukrainian Railways facilities and rolling stock.