JSC OTP BANK made a charitable contribution of UAH 1 million to the KSE Foundation, which will provide scholarships to talented students of KSE University in the next academic year. The support will be aimed at future economists, analysts and managers.
According to the KSE Foundation, the scholarship recipients include children of military and veterans, families of fallen defenders, internally displaced persons, as well as students with high academic potential and motivation to develop the country.
“OTP BANK extremely appreciates the partnership with KSE Foundation. And participation in their projects is not about money, it is about the future of Ukraine, which is being shaped right now, including thanks to talented and motivated students who seek knowledge, absorb best practices, and gain invaluable experience. Supporting young people is one of the most important tasks of the country today, and the fates and stories of these students are stories of struggle for the future, stories of resilience, endurance and perseverance. We are proud to be there for them,” said Lesya Syrota, team leader of OTP Bank Helps Ukraine program, Director of Retail Sales and Network Management Department of OTP Bank.
The partnership between KSE Foundation and OTP Bank has been going on for several years. Thus, in December 2024, the Bank supported memorial scholarships worth UAH 500 thousand to honor the memory of Ruslan Chopiuk, Iryna Tsybukh and Yar Batoh, members of the KSE community who gave their lives for Ukraine.
Over the past month, UEEX held 182 trading sessions in the BETS, 82 auctions for the purchase and sale of electricity in the Electric Power version of the BETS, and 4 trading sessions each day on the short-term natural gas market.
According to their results, 2552.56 thousand MWh of electricity, 188.29 thousand tons of oil and gas condensate, 15.73 thousand tons of liquefied gas, 165.22 million cubic meters of natural gas were sold. In addition, in December, 184 auctions were held in the “Unprocessed wood and lumber” segment. The total volume of sales in this area amounted to 321.81 thousand cubic meters.
“December confirmed the steady demand for UEEX exchange instruments in key areas. Despite the difficult situation in the power system, we ensured the continuity of trading and continue to improve trading procedures and digital solutions to ensure that the market remains transparent, competitive and predictable,” said Oleksandr Kovalenko, UEEX CEO.
More than 36.6 thousand wage arrears were recorded at the beginning of 2026, according to the Unified Register of Debtors. The number of debts increased by 6% over the year. Almost 2 thousand cases date back to 2017. A record 9.1 thousand proceedings on wage arrears were opened last year. This is 30% more than in 2024. More than a quarter of the debts are owed by companies operating in the chemicals industry. Dnipropetrovs’k region is among the anti-leaders with more than a third of all wage arrears.
As of the beginning of 2026, there were 36,629 active proceedings for non-payment of wages in Ukraine. Over the year, the number of wages not paid on time increased by 6%.
Overall, Ukrainian companies set an anti-record last year: 9,174 proceedings on wage arrears against 488 companies. This is 30% more than in 2024 and the highest figure in the last 5 years.
56% of the wage arrears proceedings initiated last year have not yet been settled.
Cases where employees have been unable to get their money for a long time are not uncommon. Among these cases, there are outright “long-lived” ones. The oldest proceeding found in the register of debtors at the time of writing stretches back to 2017 – the state-owned enterprise Poliskgeodeskartografiya owes money to its employees. It should be noted that this company is currently in a state of liquidation. In total, almost two thousand active cases were opened in 2017.
Companies producing chemical products were the most likely to fail to pay their employees last year: more than 2,600 proceedings, or 29% of all. Electricity and gas supply companies also owe almost as much (27%).
More than a third of all proceedings opened last year were in Dnipropetrovs’k region – 3.2 thousand cases. Businesses from Ivano-Frankivsk (1,100), Sumy (897), and Lviv (770) regions follow the negative example by a significant margin.
At the same time, only 1 case was recorded in Luhansk region, 4 more in Chernivtsi region, and 12 proceedings on wage arrears in Volyn.
Mostly, the money is withheld by private companies: 62% of all debts in 2025.
Another quarter of cases involve utility companies and more than 13% involve state-owned companies. Most often, limited liability companies, municipal and joint-stock companies are involved.
The absolute leader in the number of wage arrears was the utility company Teplocomunenergo of the Oleksandriya City Council, against which 1,446 cases were opened in 2025. This is followed by Karpatnaftochim (1,059), Dniproazot (630), Svitlovodskpobut (491), and Odesa Port Plant (469). Some companies were able to close most of their cases by the end of the year, while hundreds of proceedings remained active.
Several companies included in the Opendatabot 2025 Index also had arrears. Recovery of unpaid salaries was found in relation to Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukrnafta, Ukrtransgaz, the network of laboratories Esculab, the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, and DTEK Pavlohradvuhillya. In most cases, the companies closed their debts by the end of the year.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/salary-debts-2025-12
In Poland, as part of the charity campaign “Warmth from Poland for Kyiv,” more than PLN 1 million was raised to purchase generators for the Ukrainian capital, according to the Polish publication OKO.press.
According to the organizers, the fundraiser was initiated by the Stand With Ukraine foundation in collaboration with a number of public organizations. Initially, the plan was to raise PLN 1 million to purchase 100 generators, but the goal was achieved within a few hours, after which it was decided to extend the campaign and raise the new target to PLN 2 million. At the time of publication by ZAXID.NET, the amount raised was about 1.1 million zlotys.
Stand With Ukraine Foundation President Natalia Panchenko said that the response from donors reminded her of the wave of support for Ukraine in 2022, emphasizing that solidarity remains stronger than disinformation and attacks on social media.
According to reports, Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, responded to the initiative by expressing his gratitude to the participants in the fundraiser and noting the importance of support in the context of the complicated energy supply situation.
Leading Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital made investments of nearly $100 million in 2025, but did not manage to complete all of them, Dragon Capital founder Tomas Fiala said.
“Last year, we approached the pre-war level of new investments, which was over $100 million,” he said during a discussion at the Center for Economic Strategy on Friday dedicated to the main trends of the year for the Ukrainian economy.
Fiala noted that in the first two years of the war, the task was to preserve the business, restore it after the fall in 2022, and complete all capital investments that had been started before the war.
“Well, the last two years have been about expanding the business. We can no longer wait to make decisions ‘after the war’; it already takes a long time to wait for the war to end,” explained the head of Dragon Capital.
“And this year, we plan to do even more,” he emphasized.
Fiala noted that the growth plans are linked to the creation of two private equity funds — Rebuild Ukraine Fund (REBUF) and Amber Dragon Ukraine Infrastructure Fund I (in partnership with the British company Amber Infrastructure) — which the company has been actively working on for the past year and a half. The target volumes of these funds are $250 million and $350 million, respectively, and Dragon Capital’s contribution to each of them is $20 million.
The head of the company specified that the first closing of REBUF with a volume of $102.5 million took place on Friday, while the announcement of the first significant closing of Amber Dragon Ukraine Infrastructure Fund I is expected next week.
Fiala added that Dragon Capital, together with Amber Infrastructure, was selected as the winner of the competition to manage the EU Flagship Fund for Reconstruction of Ukraine with a declared volume of EUR 220 million among 12 applicants, four of which made it to the final.
According to him, Dragon Capital is ready to invest EUR40 million of its own funds in this fund, and other investors, as in the two previous funds, are five European IFIs (International Financial Institutions) and DFIs (Development Financial Institutions).
“We are currently in the process of due diligence… We plan to start investing in the middle of next year,” Fiala said. He stressed that none of these funds have restrictions on investments in physical assets.
Regarding the challenges faced by Dragon Capital’s businesses in 2025, the head of the company noted that there was no significant difference from previous years, with security risks remaining in first place.
According to him, more significant risks related to the rule of law were added in the summer, when the company suspended all investments for about three weeks during an attack on anti-corruption agencies.
“It felt like we had returned to the days of Yanukovych and authoritarian rule in the country, and we only resumed investments after the Verkhovna Rada and the president corrected their mistake and waited for the government to appoint the head of the BEB,” Fiala said.
He added that there were also cyberattacks on the company and that there are still challenges with labor resources.
“We estimate that the employee shortage is at 20%, which is about 2 million people.
Salaries are growing by 20-25% per year and are higher in currency terms than they were before the war,” the head of Dragon Capital described the situation.
At the same time, according to him, most businesses are growing faster than inflation, at 10% to 20% or even more, although expenses are also growing rapidly.
“It is difficult for us to maintain the same business margins in our budgets for the 26th year that we had in the last two years, which were basically not bad,” Fiala stated.
On Monday, January 19, there will be no precipitation in Ukraine, with only light snow in Crimea, according to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center.
In most western, northern, and Vinnytsia regions, there will be fog in some places at night and in the morning. Roads will be icy in some places. Winds will be variable, 3-8 m/s.
The temperature at night will be 15-20° below zero, and during the day 8-13° below zero; in the south and southeast of the country, the temperature at night will be 8-13° below zero, and during the day 5-10° below zero.
No precipitation in Kyiv on Monday. Icy conditions on the roads in some places. Winds from the northwest, 3-8 m/s. Nighttime temperatures 15-17°, daytime temperatures 10-12° below zero.
According to data from the Boris Sreznevsky Central Geophysical Observatory in Kyiv, on January 19, the highest daytime temperature was 9.8°C in 2007, and the lowest nighttime temperature was -23.0°C in 1942.
On Tuesday, January 20, there will be no precipitation in Ukraine, with only light snow in some eastern regions at night.
In most western and northern regions, as well as in the Vinnytsia region, there will be fog in some places at night and in the morning. Roads will be icy in some places. The wind will be mainly northwesterly, 5-10 m/s.
The temperature at night will be 13-18° below zero, and during the day 8-13° below zero; in the southern and eastern regions and in Zakarpattia, the temperature at night will be 8-13° below zero, and during the day 3-8° below zero.
No precipitation in Kyiv on Tuesday. Icy conditions on the roads in some places. Winds from the northwest at 5-10 m/s. Nighttime temperatures of 13-15°, daytime temperatures of 8-10° below zero.
