Business news, entrepreneurship and startups in Kyiv region
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.
After February's record low, electric vehicle sales surged 88% in March and 49% in April. The reason is not new buyers, but those who were waiting for the market to adapt to the cancellation of subsidies.
# Ukraine Imported Minimum Gas Volume in April Since December 2024. Behind This Collapse — Not Reduced Demand, But Price Trap and Concerns Ahead of New Heating Season Ukraine imported a minimum volume of gas in April since December 2024. This sharp decline is not driven by reduced demand, but rather stems from a price trap and growing concerns as the new heating season approaches.
Yevhenii Cherkas, who spent twenty years in the workshops and departments of Darnitsa production, took the helm of the company at a moment when it is betting on export expansion and certification in new markets.
# Company Director Suspected of Markup Scheme in Municipal Generator Deal The director of a supplier company, together with two associates, sold generators for treatment facilities to Bila Tserkva city council with a 155% markup — and received a suspicion notice. The scheme was straightforward: three commercial proposals with inflated prices, one tender, and no market verification.
KYMA reports progress in winter preparations: new cogeneration facilities with strike protection and the first diesel complex for water supply. However, the city's own figures show that what has been built is enough to cover only one-sixth of actual demand.
Calbee is switching 14 products to black-and-white packaging starting May 25 — not due to a design trend, but because of oil that cannot pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The chain is simple and alarming.
Byron Allen is paying only $20 million in cash — the remaining $100 million is formalized as a promissory note for five years. For BuzzFeed, this is not a triumph but a rescue from disappearing.
After Iranian strikes on the world's largest LNG hub, Qatar has imposed radio silence for vessels in the anchorage: a security measure that renders a quarter of global LNG traffic invisible.
Since 2022, the network has invested almost 5 billion hryvnias in Ukraine and opened 127 establishments. Sustainable design is the next signal: despite the war, the business is expanding rather than freezing operations.
Ternopil greenhouses, an Odesa workshop and seven suspects — but behind this criminal case lies a systemic problem: illegal tobacco is growing again in 2025, and the state is losing over 24 billion hrn annually.
# Tanker Kunpeng, carrying cargo from the Portovaya plant, drifted at sea for months and disguised documentation to mask Russian cargo – but India refused it anyway. This is the first public signal that fear of secondary sanctions outweighs even energy needs.