The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) plans to put priority assets up for sale by the end of this year, specifically the Odesa Port Plant (OPP), the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, and the “Ocean Plaza” shopping mall in Kyiv, said Fund Head Dmytro Natalukha at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) in Gdańsk, Poland, on Thursday.
“There are assets that were nationalized, either from Russia or from Russian citizens subject to sanctions. These include fertilizer production facilities, chemical plants, heavy machinery manufacturers, and so on. What they have in common is that they are large-scale and require fairly multi-level investment—capital investment—and we can identify which ones can be sold more quickly. And we plan to divest 7–8% of these assets this year,” he said during the conference.
Natalukha reported that, in particular, the Odesa Port Plant (OPZ) will be put up for sale in the third quarter.
He also noted that the Mykolaiv Alumina Plant, “a shopping complex nationalized from the Rotterberg brothers in Kyiv, and other valuable assets” are currently up for sale.
As previously reported, the published plan for preparing assets prioritized for sale in 2026 provides, in particular, the sale in September–October 2026 of OPZ JSC with a starting price of 4.3 billion UAH and Demurinsky Mining and Processing Plant LLC for 1.8 billion UAH, as well as the Kyiv-based “Ocean Plaza” shopping and entertainment center for 11.3 billion UAH in November–December.
In addition, an auction for the sale of Nikolayev Alumina Plant LLC is also scheduled for November–December.
Meanwhile, an auction is scheduled for August–September to sell Glukhiv Quartzite Quarry LLC with a starting price of 50 million UAH, and for September–October—Sumykhimprom JSC for 1.01 billion UAH and Motordetal-Konotop LLC for 390 million UAH.
Veteran and civic activist Oleksandr Budko (Teren) has opened a franchise of the “Muza” ready-meal delivery service in Rivne, co-founded by chef Yevhen Klopotenko, according to Klopotenko’s press office.
“We spent a long time refining the ‘Muza’ franchise model before we began scaling it through partners. It’s important to me that people who open a franchise don’t just invest in the business, but also share our values. Oleksandr is exactly that kind of person,” commented Yevhen Klopotenko.
According to Teren, the decision to open a franchise was driven by a desire to influence the culinary culture in his hometown.
Klopotenko’s “Muza” delivery service specializes in restaurant-quality Ukrainian cuisine and is expanding through a franchise model. Rivne became the third city to host a location, following Kyiv and Lviv. The new location is at 32 Soborna St., Rivne. Orders can be placed via Glovo and Bolt Food, and customers can also pick up their orders in person.
Currently, the chain has 17 active locations (16 dark kitchens and one brick-and-mortar restaurant in Kyiv) and fulfills over 10,000 orders per month.
The “Muza” concept is “a restaurant at home without the cooking.” All dishes are created using Klopotenko’s original recipes. The menu features over 30 traditional Ukrainian dishes: borscht with smoked pear, bograch, varenyky, meat and fish cutlets, Poltava-style cutlet, as well as breakfasts, desserts, and signature fruit compotes and fruit drinks. The service’s pricing is designed for daily consumption. Prices for first courses start at 188 UAH, main courses at 225 UAH, and baked goods at 145 UAH.
The partners plan to launch an exclusive line called “Muza by Teren,” with the menu to be developed with the direct involvement of Oleksandr, who holds a degree in food technology.
In addition to Rivne, the “Musa” team is considering Dnipro, Odesa, Cherkasy, and Vinnytsia as priority cities for the project’s further development.
Ukraine ranks last among European countries in terms of the affordability of purchasing GTA VI, according to a visualization by Maven Mapping, which compares the number of working hours required to buy the game based on the average hourly wage.
According to the study, the average Ukrainian worker would need about 31.12 hours to buy the new Grand Theft Auto game. That’s nearly four full workdays based on a standard eight-hour workday.
By comparison, in Northern and Western European countries, purchasing GTA VI is equivalent to just a few hours of work. In Denmark, it takes about 1.7 hours; in Norway, 1.77 hours; in the Netherlands, 2.2 hours; in Germany, 2.32 hours; and in France, 2.67 hours.
In Central and Southeastern Europe, the figure is significantly higher. In Croatia, it takes about 4.94 hours to buy the game; in Serbia, 16.95 hours; in Romania, 17.64 hours; in Montenegro—17.92 hours, in Bulgaria—18.77 hours, in Turkey—23.52 hours, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina—23.89 hours.
Ukraine, with a figure of 31.12 hours, ranks at the very bottom of the list. This reflects not so much the price of a specific game as the gap in purchasing power between the Ukrainian market and the wealthier countries of Europe. While for a worker in Denmark or Germany such a purchase is comparable to a few hours of work, for a Ukrainian it represents an expense equivalent to nearly half a workweek.
Such rankings are not official economic statistics, as they depend on the selected game price, the method used to calculate wages, and exchange rates. However, they clearly illustrate how global prices for digital goods are perceived in countries with different income levels.
Source: Maven Mapping – https://www.threads.com/@maven.mapping/post/DaACB90iNhn/number-of-hours-needed-to-buy-gta-vi/
Following the deaths of demining specialists as a result of Russian shelling in the Kherson region, the Ukrainian Red Cross (URC) stresses the need to comply with international humanitarian law (IHL).
“Humanitarian workers risk their lives every day to save others, assist the civilian population, and make Ukrainian soil safer. They must never be targeted. The Ukrainian Red Cross once again emphasizes the need to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law,” the URC stated in a Facebook post on Thursday.
The Ukrainian Red Cross expressed its condolences to the team at Norwegian People’s Aid Ukraine, as well as to the families, loved ones, and colleagues of those who died.
As previously reported, on June 24, a staff member of the international humanitarian organization Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) was killed as a result of Russian shelling in the Kherson region; another deminer died in the hospital from severe injuries. Three specialists were wounded.
In just over 24 hours, floodwaters in Ukraine have claimed the lives of 17 people, including nine children; the search for four more people is ongoing, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
“The tragedies occurred in 12 regions of Ukraine… Unfortunately, these terrible figures may rise—the search is currently underway in three regions for four people, including three children,” said Viktor Vitovetsky, director of the Department of Civil Protection and Preventive Activities at the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
According to available statistics from rescue services, as of early May 2026, 135 people—including 10 children—had died in Ukraine’s water bodies since the beginning of the year. At that time, the State Emergency Service reported that 74 people, including 23 children, had been rescued since the start of the year.
With the start of the summer season, the statistics have deteriorated sharply. According to the State Emergency Service, from the beginning of June through June 21 alone, 64 emergencies occurred while people were swimming in Ukraine’s water bodies, resulting in the deaths of 53 people, including nine children.
Taking into account the new data on 17 deaths over the past 24 hours, the number of victims in water bodies since the start of the year may be at least 205. However, the State Emergency Service has not provided an updated total figure for the period from the start of 2026 through June 25 in a public statement.
Rescuers remind the public that most water-related tragedies occur due to swimming in unequipped areas, overestimating one’s abilities, alcohol consumption, violations of water safety rules, and a lack of supervision of children.
The State Emergency Service emphasizes that children should only be near water under constant adult supervision.
According to the Interfax-Ukraine Culture project, artificial intelligence can be a useful assistant for authors, students, and researchers, but it cannot replace a writer because it lacks its own life experience, according to Rostyslav Semkiv, director of the Smoloskyp publishing house, who stated this in an interview with the “Interfax-Ukraine” agency.
“I view artificial intelligence much the same way I view nuclear energy. It can be used for good, or it can be used for harm. It all depends on how a person uses this tool,” Semkiv said.
According to him, AI can help find sources, organize information, select relevant literature, and improve the logic of texts—just as professors, editors, or academic advisors used to do.
At the same time, he cautioned against completely delegating creative and intellectual work to algorithms.
“As an assistant, it’s a wonderful tool. As a substitute for one’s own thinking, it’s a bad idea,” Semkiv emphasized.
He also noted that artificial intelligence still often makes mistakes, especially when it comes to Ukrainian literature or highly specialized topics, and in some cases may even invent facts that do not exist.
Commenting on the emergence of books written with the help of AI, Semkiv noted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish such texts based solely on formal characteristics. However, the main difference, in his opinion, lies elsewhere.
“Literature is, first and foremost, the transmission of experience. A person writes based on their own life, observations, and experiences. Artificial intelligence does not have such experience,” he said.
According to Semkiv, a writer always brings their own life context, emotions, and observations into the text, whereas artificial intelligence merely generalizes a vast number of already existing texts.
“True literature is always an attempt to express oneself, one’s environment, one’s context, and one’s own story. And this is precisely where artificial intelligence has very serious limitations,” Semkiv concluded.
As previously reported, Rostyslav Semkiv, director of the “Smoloskyp” publishing house, believes that Ukrainian libraries should be transformed into modern community cultural centers, and the world is becoming increasingly interested in Ukraine through literature, while the full-scale war has already shaped a new generation of Ukrainian writers. He also stated that Ukraine’s book market continues to grow despite the war, and audiobooks could become one of the drivers of its development. Additionally, in June, due to an accident on the heating network, the Smoloskyp publishing house building in Kyiv was flooded, resulting in damage to about 30% of the book collection.
