SkyUp Airlines (Kyiv) is planning to transport large volumes of cargo from China to Ukraine via Poland, Romania and Moldova, and is also developing a concept for transporting cargo from the United States, for which it is necessary to go through a special procedure for obtaining FAA permits.
According to the company’s website, the company is also in dialogue with Southern Airways Express (the USA) regarding the branding of their aircraft in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and is discussing the possibility of creating “sister airlines” that could attract SkyUp employees to work on an outsourcing basis.
According to the airline’s website, in March, SkyUp performed 21 evacuation flights on the Chisinau-Tel Aviv route and transported 2,835 refugees to Israel under the repatriation program, as well as their 124 pets.
Today, SkyUp is working on the possibility of performing evacuation flights to Portugal, Sweden and the UK under the Israel-Romania program.
In addition, SkyUp agreed with Suceava Airport (Romania) on the possibility of transporting cargo. This is the closest point to the border of Ukraine.
The company has now also confirmed shipments of humanitarian supplies from Portugal and Israel to Ukraine via Poland, including helmets and clothing for the army.
It is noted that during this time the company transported 112 tonnes of humanitarian cargo. The cargo included medicines, including insulin, baby food, personal hygiene and household chemicals, blankets, diapers, etc. The cargo was distributed according to its intended purpose: for the needs of Ukrainian refugees in Chisinau and various cities of Ukraine.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer delivered a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that “this war must stop,” writes the Kronen Zeitung newspaper on Monday, citing Nehammer’s office.
Nehammer himself described the meeting as “very tough”, “very open”, “very direct” – “not a friendly visit”. For him, it was an “obligation”. He wanted to “leave no stone unturned” in order to achieve a cessation of hostilities, or at least humanitarian progress for the suffering civilian population of Ukraine, the newspaper writes. At the same time, she quotes the message of the office, “there is no alternative to the search for a direct dialogue with Russia, despite all the differences.”
Alleged Russian war crimes were also dealt with “in the clearest possible way,” the report said. In addition, the chancellor made it clear that sanctions against Russia will continue and in any case will be tightened as long as people die in Ukraine. “I touched on serious war crimes and stressed that the perpetrators must be held accountable. I also told President Putin in no uncertain terms that as long as people are dying in Ukraine, sanctions against Russia will remain in place and will continue to get tougher,” he said.
The EU is more united than ever on the issue of sanctions, he said. Nehammer will now brief Austria’s European partners on the talks and make recommendations on the next steps. “But my most important message to Putin was that this war must finally end, because in a war there are only losers on both sides,” the newspaper quoted the chancellor as saying.
On Saturday, the Austrian chancellor visited Kyiv and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
German automaker Mercedes-Benz Group AG aims to at least halve its carbon footprint per passenger car produced by 2030 compared to 2020 levels.
According to the company’s press release, to achieve this goal, it intends to increase the share of electric vehicles in the line of produced cars, use “green” charging technologies, work on improving battery technologies, and also actively use recycled materials and renewable energy sources in production.
Mercedes-Benz expects to produce exclusively electric vehicles by 2030. The company aims to increase the share of hybrid and electric vehicles to 50% of the total volume of passenger cars produced by 2025.
By 2030, the automaker intends to cover more than 70% of its energy needs from renewable sources, in particular through the use of solar panels and wind turbines at its enterprises.
The company has previously said it plans to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations by 2039.
Mercedes-Benz shares lost 1.3% in Frankfurt trading on Monday. Since the beginning of this year, their value has decreased by 8%.
Passengers carried in Jan-August of 2021, in mln
The construction of the innovation park LvivTech.City with co-working will continue, said the founder of the UFuture holding Vasily Khmelnitsky.
“They decided to complete the construction despite the war for two reasons. Firstly, to give employees the opportunity to earn money for their families. Every job saved today is support for the Ukrainian economy and Ukrainians on their native land. Secondly, we are creating a large coworking space right now, so that our IT specialists can stay and work in Ukraine,” the entrepreneur wrote on Facebook.
As reported, UFuture planned to launch the first stage of the LvivTech.City innovation park with an area of 18 thousand square meters. m in September 2021.
LvivTech.City will be located on the territory of the industrial zone of the former Lvovpribor plant. It is planned that the total area of the office part will be more than 40 thousand square meters. m. The park will be equipped with parking lots, a green area and areas for recreation. In addition, the project will be implemented in accordance with LEED green building standards.
According to the project, the area of the park is 5 hectares, the planned area of the residential part is 110 thousand square meters. m.
Completion of the first stage of construction of the LvivTech.City innovation park was previously planned for the second half of 2018, later it was postponed to the end of 2019.
UFuture is a holding company that brings together Khmelnytsky’s business and social projects. He has a diversified portfolio of assets in real estate, infrastructure, industry, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals and IT. The value of UFuture’s assets is estimated at $500 million. The total capitalization of the businesses in which it has invested is up to $1 billion.
Since the beginning of the war, the number of gas stations in Ukraine has decreased three times, and private fuel consumption has decreased by about the same amount, said Sergey Kuyun, director of the A-95 consulting group.
“According to our estimates, a third of the total number of gas stations is operating, this is about 2.5 thousand stations, before the war there were 7.5 thousand. Of course, the main reason is the lack of fuel. Consumption has also decreased three times compared to the pre-war level,” he said at a closed briefing at the Media Center in Lviv on Monday.
At the same time, Kuyun noted that traders or network owners are forced to provide their most strategic and powerful facilities, located mainly in regional centers or on main routes, while peripheral stations are forced to stand idle, although there are also a lot of consumers there.
According to him, the shortage of fuel became especially aggravated after the shutdown of the Kremenchug Oil Refinery as a result of a missile attack by Russian invaders.
“Many companies, especially in central, eastern and southern Ukraine, have lost their main source of supply for themselves. The only way out for them is to independently import through the western border. This is mainly about the fact that small regional companies go abroad with fuel trucks and bring fuel,” he explained.
At the same time, the state’s restriction of fuel prices and the high cost of delivery does not allow to activate this type of supply, the expert believes.
“This supply is very long, only 800 km can be traveled to the border. And the cost of this fuel is higher than the prices set by the government. Accordingly, they do not have any economy or at least a break-even level, and, accordingly, there is no motivation,” he said. director of “A-95”.
In his opinion, the way out of the situation could be a temporary waiver of state regulation, so that as many companies as possible could leave and bring fuel from abroad. However, there are no signals yet that the government is ready to take such steps, he noted.
“There are certain debates going on, let’s hope that we will wait for the right and necessary decisions,” Kuyun said, adding that the government is worried about prices in this case.
At the same time, he called responsible the decision to significantly reduce taxes on fuel, although already insufficient. “In fact, it abolished these taxes altogether, a very necessary step, but then we had a working Kremenchuk Oil Refinery. Now the situation has changed and requires new steps to fill the market. There can be no simple solutions in this situation,” the expert expressed his conviction.
As reported, in March, the Verkhovna Rada, at the initiative of the government, zeroed out the excise tax on fuel and lowered the VAT rate to 7% from 20%.
According to the government’s decision, the price of “premium fuel” cannot be more than 5% higher than the price of conventional fuel. As of the end of March, taking into account the marginal trade margins, the maximum price for “regular” gasoline for sale through a network of filling stations should not exceed UAH 33.53/liter, for “regular” diesel fuel – UAH 37.43/liter.
On April 2, the Russian invaders destroyed the infrastructure of the Kremenchug oil refinery with their shelling, and it stopped working.
