Elon Musk has accused Ukraine of being involved in a cyberattack on his social network X on Monday.
“There was a massive cyberattack that tried to take down the platform from IP addresses originating in Ukraine,” he said in a commentary to FoxBusiness.
At the same time, he said he was not yet fully sure what happened.
Source: https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1899198049940832719?s=19
Ukraine may soon become the main supplier of biomethane to the European Union, with the share of Ukrainian biomethane in the European market reaching 20% in the future, said Georgiy Geletukha, Chairman of the Board of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (BAU).
“Ukraine has almost ideal conditions for biomethane production. We have medium and large agricultural enterprises with 3 thousand hectares of land (under cultivation – IF-U). We can get raw materials for the plant from a single source. We have a well-developed gas structure: distribution networks and a gas transmission network. We have the highest density of gas network coverage in the whole of Europe. We have the largest area of agricultural land and, accordingly, the largest resource. Therefore, this is a very promising topic for us,” he said at the Ukrainian Investment Congress in Kyiv.
Heletukha emphasized that Europe has ambitious plans for the production and consumption of biomethane and aims to consume about 35 billion cubic meters in 2030. At present, European production is estimated at around 3 billion cubic meters. Given the current trends in the alternative energy market, the EU will be able to increase its own production to 20 billion cubic meters of biomethane within five years.
The expert explained this delay in the development of the biomethane market in Europe by the lack of large free areas of agricultural land and, accordingly, the inability to produce the necessary amount of raw materials for processing.
“And according to all trends, it will not have time to produce 35 billion cubic meters. Well, according to the trends over the past five years, they will reach about 20 billion cubic meters. The market there (in the EU – IF-U) is completely different for agricultural products. It is deficit. And it will be deficient at least until 2050. And after 2030, Europe is setting new plans – production and consumption of 100 billion cubic meters of biomethane by 2050. It will be the same story. That is, they do not have time, they do not have enough raw materials,” Geletukha emphasized.
He suggested that if Ukraine were to produce up to 15 billion cubic meters of biomethane now, the EU would “buy everything with a bang.”
The UABIO CEO reminded that three powerful producers – MHP, Vitagro and Gals Agro – have already launched biomethane production in Ukraine, of which two have already started exporting, and the third is accumulating stocks in storage and will start exporting in the near future.
According to him, in Ukraine, the range of biomethane producers and potential exporters will expand in 2025. They will be joined by another MHP enterprise, Teofipol Energy Company and Józefów-Mykolaiv Biogas Company. In total, Ukrainian facilities will produce 111 million cubic meters of biomethane per year.
At a cost of EUR900 per 1 thousand cubic meters of biomethane produced from crop waste or from livestock waste, including manure or litter, at EUR1100-1200 per 1 thousand cubic meters, Ukraine will be able to receive up to EUR100 billion a year from exporting these products to the EU, Geletukha predicts.
As reported, the first batch of Ukrainian biomethane of 67 thousand cubic meters was exported on February 7, 2025 by Vitagro, an energy holding whose plant with a capacity of 3 million cubic meters of biomethane per year operates in Khmelnytsky region. The exports were made to Germany.
On February 11, MHP’s biomethane plant Oril-Leader (Dnipropetrovska oblast) exported 27.4 thousand cubic meters of biomethane, becoming the second Ukrainian company to do so. MHP exported biomethane via gas pipelines across the Ukrainian-Polish border to Germany. The buyer was Vitol. The capacity of Oril-Leader is 11 million cubic meters per year.
The Gals Agro agricultural holding has built a biomethane plant with a capacity of 3 million cubic meters in Chernihiv region. The company has already been connected to the grid and is preparing to make its first biomethane export transaction.
As part of the expansion of transport corridors and the development of international transportation, the first container train from India to Kazakhstan via Uzbekistan was launched.
According to the press service of JSC “Uztemiryulcontainer”, the train, which includes 12 twenty-foot containers, departed from the port of Mundra (India) to the station of Sorokov (Kazakhstan). The route passes through Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, covering 1,585 km by sea and 4,300 km by rail.
Previously, container shipments from India to Uzbekistan (Mundra – Sergeli) have been successfully carried out along this route.
On March 7, the President of Uzbekistan watched a presentation on expanding the raw material base of minerals critical to industry and manufacturing high value-added products.
Uzbekistan has discovered deposits of more than 30 metals such as tungsten, molybdenum, magnesium, lithium, germanium, graphite, vanadium and titanium.
In the next three years, 76 projects covering 28 rare minerals are planned to be implemented with a total value of $2.6 billion. To expand the raw material base, additional funding will be allocated for exploration and research.
It is emphasized that the main task is to extract valuable raw materials directly from the ore using modern technologies, increase the purity of minerals and create products with high added value. For example, beneficiation of tungsten concentrate from the Ingichka deposit will double the added value. So far, 18 such projects have been developed.
In order to expand the chain “raw materials – processing – science and technology – finished products”, it was proposed to organize technology parks in the Tashkent and Samarkand regions, which are rich in molybdenum and tungsten.
The head of state instructed to transfer technologies and best practices in this area, open modern laboratories and training centers. It was emphasized that in the context of the “fourth industrial revolution” it is necessary to create a solid base for taking a worthy position in this market.
From September to February (6 months of the 2024-2025 marketing year), Ukraine exported more than 403.5 thousand tons of sugar, of which 1.6% was sent to the EU countries, the rest to world markets, the press service of the National Association of Sugar Producers of Ukraine “Ukrtsukor” reported.
The industry association noted that exports to the EU resumed in February and amounted to 6,559 tons. The main EU countries where Ukrainian sugar was exported were Bulgaria (72% of the exported volume), Greece (12%) and Italy (12%).
The main export destinations for Ukrainian sugar in the first 6 months of 2024/25 MY were Turkey (18% of total exports), Libya, North Macedonia, Somalia, and Sri Lanka.
As reported, in the production season of 2024, Ukrainian sugar producers produced 1.8 million tons of sugar. The volume of the domestic market in Ukraine is currently estimated at 900 thousand tons per year.
In February 2025, Ukraine increased the total volume of foreign trade in dairy products to $45.6 million, which is 8.5% more than in January 2025 ($42.0 million), but 16.4% lower than in December 2024 ($54.5 million), the Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine reported.
According to the report, dairy exports in February 2025 amounted to $24.2 million and increased by 25% compared to January 2025 ($19.3 million) and by 51% compared to December 2024 ($16.0 million). The growth occurred in all commodity items, especially in milk and condensed cream (+0.91 thousand tons) and butter and milk fats (+0.25 thousand tons).
At the same time, 36% of the export structure was accounted for by milk and condensed cream, 30% by butter, and 20% by cheese.
Experts emphasized that such significant export volumes have not been recorded since October 2022.
Instead, import volumes continued to decline and became the lowest in the last six months: in February 2025, they amounted to $21.4 million and decreased by 6% compared to January 2025 ($22.7 million) and by 44% compared to December 2024 ($38.5 million). Moreover, the volume of cheese imports was standard, while the volume of fermented dairy products imports decreased by 14.5% compared to January.
The export-import balance in February 2025 was positive: ($2.8 million) – against $(-3.4) million in January 2025 and $(-22.6) million in December 2024.
Exports in value terms exceeded imports by 13% in February 2025 (0.85 times in January 2025, 0.41 times in December 2024).
