Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

EU and US main hopes for achieving peace in Ukraine – research

According to the results of a study conducted by Active Group and Experts Club in August 2025, Ukrainians rated the role of European Union countries in promoting peace in Ukraine the highest.

According to the survey, 42.0% of respondents believe that the EU (primarily France and Germany) is making the greatest contribution to the peace process. 25.8% of respondents noted the key role of the United States, and 12.8% noted the key role of the United Kingdom. At the same time, 11.7% of Ukrainians believe that no country is contributing to the establishment of peace, while 5.8% were unable to decide on an answer. Significantly fewer respondents noted other countries: China — 1.3%, India — 0.5%, Brazil — 0.2%.

“The results show that Ukrainians rate the diplomatic and political efforts of the EU and the US highest. Together with the UK, these countries form the main international triangle of trust for Ukrainian society,” said Active Group Director Oleksandr Pozniy.

Maksim Urakin, co-founder of Experts Club, emphasized the economic dimension of the partnership.

“For our country, it is important not only to have a political partnership with the EU, the US, and the UK, but also an economic one. China, on the other hand, despite its leadership in trade with Ukraine, remains on the periphery of the peace process,” he said.

The survey was part of a large-scale project by Active Group and Experts Club to study Ukraine’s international image and foreign policy orientations.

 

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Ukrainians’ attitudes toward Mexico – study by Experts Club

The vast majority of Ukrainians have a neutral attitude toward Mexico, although positive assessments significantly outweigh negative ones. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by Active Group in collaboration with Experts Club.

According to the survey, 19.7% of respondents have a positive opinion of Mexico (15.3% — mostly positive, 4.3% — completely positive). A negative attitude is held by 10% of respondents (9% — mostly negative, 1% — completely negative). At the same time, the majority of Ukrainians — 67% — take a neutral position, while another 3.3% admitted that they are not familiar with the country.

At the end of the first half of 2025, trade turnover between Ukraine and Mexico amounted to $169.1 million, of which exports from Ukraine amounted to $28.9 million and imports from Mexico amounted to $140.1 million. The negative balance amounted to $111.2 million.

“The high level of neutrality towards Mexico is explained by the country’s remoteness and limited direct contacts. At the same time, trade between Ukraine and Mexico is showing some momentum, although the structure of relations is currently unbalanced — Ukrainian exports are significantly lower than imports,” said Experts Club founder Maksim Urakin.

The full video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgC9TPnMoMI&t

You can subscribe to the Experts Club YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub

 

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“R1 Technologies has joined League of Insurance Organizations of Ukraine (LIOU)

R1 Technologies LLC, operating in the market of IT solutions in the insurance sector, has joined the League of Insurance Organizations of Ukraine, reports LSOU on Facebook.

Among the company’s key products is an online platform. Crimea moreover, it provides comprehensive tools for the sale and administration of insurance products, ensures compliance with the requirements of the regulator and increases the efficiency of insurance companies and intermediaries.

“We are convinced that cooperation with the League will contribute to the development of innovative solutions, increase transparency and competitiveness of the insurance market of Ukraine”, – said Igor Nesterov, Director of R1 Technologies.

 

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Agrotrade wants to relocate its land bank from frontline regions

Agrotrade, an agricultural holding company whose land bank is concentrated in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Poltava regions, has noted lower efficiency in frontline areas and would like to strengthen its business model through relocation.

“We want to grow. We want to strengthen our business model by relocating our land bank and forming land clusters in safer regions,” said Agrotrade CEO Serhiy Nechyporuk at the Agro Finance 2025 Conference, recently held by Oschadbank.

“We tell the banks: give us funds, we will relocate our land bank, create a successful cluster, for example, in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and we will be more resilient. And bankers tell us: well, let’s finance it with your own funds, and then we’ll think about how we can refinance you,” he described the discussion with banks.

According to Nechyporuk, bankers are ignoring the sound business logic of the agricultural holding, which has strong agronomic and agrotechnological expertise that it can scale up, but at the same time they are refusing to increase financing limits due to the need for greater loan reserves for a company operating in frontline regions.

Currently, according to him, some of the company’s land is located 10 km from the line of combat.

“It is difficult to be effective when there are constantly REBs working in the fields: we have now adopted a precision farming strategy (using drones) and, unfortunately, we cannot implement it on two clusters (out of the company’s five clusters),” Nechyporuk gave an example.

He added that the company also has “agronomic combat” bonuses for agronomists who go out to certain fields that are considered risky.

According to the CEO of Agrotrade, if we do not focus on supporting the frontline regions now, a “wild economic frontline field” will soon appear there.

Nechyporuk also noted a decline in the trend toward processing products due to a shortage of raw materials, which arose against the backdrop of a reduction in Ukraine’s agricultural land bank from 25 million hectares to 20 million hectares due to Russia’s full-scale aggression.

“There used to be a very strong trend towards processing agricultural products, but unfortunately, it has now declined. We probably invested a lot in it, but now there is not as much raw material because we are losing our land,” he said.

The Agrotrade Group of Companies is a vertically integrated holding company covering the entire agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage, and trade in agricultural products). It cultivates over 70,000 hectares of land. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans, and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a one-time storage capacity of 570,000 tons.

The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn, sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20,000 tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of the Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region).

The founder of Agrotrade is Vsevolod Kozhemyako.

 

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Ukrainians mostly neutral towards Algeria, but trade shows potential for development

A survey conducted by Active Group and Experts Club in August 2025 showed that Ukrainians’ attitude towards Algeria remains neutral overall.

According to the results, 75% of respondents said they were neutral towards the country. Positive assessments accounted for only 11.7% (of which 9.3% were mostly positive and 2.3% were completely positive). At the same time, 6% had a negative attitude, and another 7.3% of respondents said they were not familiar with Algeria at all.

“For Ukrainians, Algeria remains a relatively distant country, which explains the high level of neutral assessments. At the same time, positive attitudes still prevail over negative ones, and this creates a basis for further cooperation,” commented Alexander Pozniy, head of Active Group.

In turn, Experts Club co-founder Maksim Urakin emphasized the importance of economic ties:

“Despite relatively weak emotional perceptions, Ukraine and Algeria have a noticeable level of trade interaction. In 2025, bilateral trade exceeded $401 million. At the same time, Ukrainian exports amounted to $338.9 million, while imports of Algerian goods amounted to only $62.4 million. As a result, the trade balance is significant and positive for Ukraine — over $276 million. This indicates that economic cooperation can become the basis for further development of relations,” he stressed.

Thus, although Ukrainians’ attitude toward Algeria is mostly neutral, the economic balance looks very favorable for Ukraine.

The full video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgC9TPnMoMI&t

You can subscribe to the Experts Club YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub

 

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Ukrainians have neutral or negative attitude toward Iraq, according to study by Experts Club

More than half of Ukrainians express a neutral attitude toward Iraq, but at the same time, a significant proportion of respondents rated the country negatively. This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by Active Group in cooperation with the Experts Club think tank.

According to the study, 53.7% of respondents said their attitude toward Iraq is neutral. At the same time, 37.0% said they have a negative attitude (11.3% — completely negative, 25.7% — mostly negative). Only 5.7% of Ukrainians expressed positive views (1.7% — completely positive, 4.0% — mostly positive). Another 3.7% of respondents said they were not familiar with the country.

“Ukrainians associate Iraq primarily with wars, instability, and crises, which significantly affects their perception of the country. At the same time, more than half of the respondents demonstrate a neutral position, which indicates the absence of a clear personal assessment,” commented Alexander Pozniy, head of Active Group.

Maksim Urakin, co-founder of Experts Club, emphasized the specifics of economic relations.

“Despite the fact that some of our fellow citizens may confuse Iran and Iraq, the latter is one of our most profitable trading partners. Ukraine’s trade turnover with Iraq in January-August 2025 amounted to $189.3 million. At the same time, exports from Ukraine amounted to $189.2 million, while imports amounted to only $0.16 million. This structure creates a significant positive balance of over $189 million, making Iraq primarily a market for Ukrainian products rather than a source of imports,” Urakin emphasized.

Thus, Ukrainians’ attitude toward Iraq remains neutral overall, with a high proportion of negative assessments, while economic relations are one-sided and focused on Ukrainian exports.

The full video can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgC9TPnMoMI&t

You can subscribe to the Experts Club YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ExpertsClub

 

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