Optima School has received permission to conduct educational activities in Poland and will start teaching high school students (grades 10-11) at the beginning of the school year in September, Optima School director Olga Bilodid said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.
“The Polish school will be enrolling high school students. It will start at the beginning of the school year. We have already realized what we dreamed of last year, and we intend to move to other EU countries,” Bilodid said.
Optima School founder Roberts Weishla noted that Optima will share its experience with other countries, positioning itself not only as an international school with universal content, but also creating local content that meets local curricula.
According to him, Optima has the capacity to serve up to 500 thousand students at a time.
Optima School was established and licensed in 2015. The school currently has 20 thousand students.
The State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine has renewed three special permits for subsoil use in Dnipropetrovska and Zhytomyrska oblasts. NADRA.INFO reports with reference to the order of the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of 09.08.2024 No. 368 (download the appendix).
The following permits have been renewed:
As of August 12, Ukraine exported 4.962 mln tonnes of grains and pulses since the beginning of the 2024-2025 marketing year (MY, July-June), up 58.9% compared to the same period a year earlier, the press service of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine reported, citing data from the State Customs Service.
According to the report, in August, 1.26 million tons were exported, which is 48.6% more than last year. In terms of crops, since the beginning of the current season, Ukraine has exported 2.273 mln tonnes of wheat (1.25 mln tonnes in 2023/24 MY), 739 thsd tonnes of barley (385 thsd tonnes), 0.3 thsd tonnes of rye (0.6 thsd tonnes), and 1.932 mln tonnes of corn (1.481 mln tonnes).
The total export of Ukrainian flour since the beginning of the season as of August 12 is estimated at 6.3 thsd tonnes (in 2023/24 MY – 14.9 thsd tonnes), including 5.7 thsd tonnes of wheat (14.3 thsd tonnes).
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has included in the Register of Industrial Parks (IP) industrial park “Ma’Rizhany” in Zhytomyr region and “Dobrosin Invest Park” in Lviv region, in which about 1250 jobs will be created in total, the Ministry of Economy reported.
The corresponding decision was made by the Ukrainian government at a meeting on Friday.
IE Ma’Rizhany will operate on the territory of Khoroshevska territorial community in Zhytomyr region. The area of 30.2 hectares will accommodate enterprises of processing industry: production of textiles, nonwovens and construction materials, as well as scientific and technical activities.
The concept of the park assumes the creation of 750 jobs and investments of about UAH 2 billion.
As reported, IP “Ma’Rizhany” will be the first in Europe park for primary processing of bast crops, particularly industrial hemp and flax. As of February this year, 7 thousand square meters of production and 12 thousand square meters of warehouses were ready for operation, 180 thousand square meters were prepared for construction.
The second phase of the project construction provides for the expansion of production facilities twice – up to 14 thousand square meters and warehouses three times – up to 36 thousand square meters. m.
In April 2023, Michel Tereschenko, ex-mayor of Glukhov, informed about the beginning of production in Western Europe of special agro-equipment and production line for the project “Ma’Rizhany”. Negotiations were also held with farmers of Zhytomyr region to prepare for sowing and harvesting 850 hectares of industrial hemp.
IE “Dobrosin Invest Park” is located in the village of Dobrosin. On the area of 14.6 hectares will operate light industry enterprises, manufacturers of plastic and metal products, food products, woodworking and other activities.
According to the Ministry, the concept of the park provides for the creation of up to 500 jobs and attraction of UAH 1.6 billion of investments.
According to the concept of the park, the initiator of its creation was Dobrosyn-Mageriv village council.
Thus, 88 parks have been included in the Register of industrial (industrial) parks, including 20 in 2024.
As reported, the state budget provides UAH 1 billion to stimulate the creation of infrastructure of IP.
Three Ukrainian state-owned banks – Ukreximbank, Ukrgasbank and Oschadbank – joined the implementation of this program.
The European Union has allocated EUR2m for a new humanitarian demining program in Ukraine, under which Ukrainian cynologists with specially trained dogs will search for and clear unexploded ordnance, the press service of the EU Delegation in Ukraine has reported.
According to the report, the project is funded by the European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments Service (FPI) and is being implemented jointly with humanitarian mine action organizations APOPO, which specializes in the use of animals for demining, and Mines Advisory Group (MAG).
“The 16 Belgian Malinois will be the first technical reconnaissance dogs to be deployed in Ukraine. Together with their eight guides, all of whom are Ukrainians, they underwent extensive training in Cambodia for five months before returning to Ukraine,” the statement said.
The EU Delegation in Ukraine specified that many of the dog handlers had previously studied dog training at the Sumy National Agrarian University and were trained in manual demining.
The dogs will be used to complement the MAG’s manual and mechanized demining efforts in liberated Ukrainian territories, including in the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Kharkiv regions.
“We are pleased to be able to fund this initiative as part of the EU’s support to improve and scale up humanitarian mine action in Ukraine. We believe this innovative project can significantly accelerate the cleanup of contaminated land and its release for civilian use,” said FPI Director Peter M. Wagner.
Under certain conditions, teams of technical reconnaissance dogs can survey large tracts of land much faster than bomb squads, identifying explosive hazards and helping to confirm the safety of an area. If teams with dogs find a mine or unexploded ordnance, MAG deminers will be tasked to defuse the item, the EU Delegation to Ukraine explained.
MAG Ukraine Director John Cunliffe believes that dogs have the potential to significantly speed up the cleanup of certain types of terrain and contamination. “They can be a really important tool in combination with traditional manual and mechanized demining teams,” he added.
“The EU commitment will allow us to return supposedly contaminated land to the Ukrainian people much more quickly than would otherwise be the case. We will be recruiting and training new handlers in the coming months as we scale up our operations,” said APOPO Ukraine Program Manager Nick Gest.
The European Commission’s Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) service implements the EU’s foreign policy. Humanitarian mine action is a key element of the support FPI has mobilized for Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Its total funding to date amounts to EUR55 million.
APOPO is a global provider of mine detection animals that has developed effective mine clearance technology that is implemented in low-income countries. The organization protects people from the risk of landmines and other consequences of war. APOPO employs more than 450 people in 10 countries.
The Ukrainian restaurant chain Lviv Croissants has entered the US market, where it has invested $220 thousand together with a partner to open a bakery and produce frozen croissants in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.
“Lviv Croissants is now in America! The first Lviv Croissants bakery in the United States is located in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, and is already welcoming its first guests. Locals love quality healthy food, and we know how to cook it, so it’s a total match. We also know how to surprise with a variety of flavors, create a friendly atmosphere and a sense of a place where you can be yourself,” the company’s website says.
Lviv Croissants founder Andriy Galytsky told the Forbes Entrepreneurs Forum that the company had been preparing for two years to enter the US market, while it took about five months to prepare for European markets. This is the third expansion of the Ukrainian chain abroad after Poland and Slovakia.
The co-owner and CEO of the American restaurant is a local entrepreneur, Brett Larrabee, whom Galitsky met at a franchise exhibition in New York in 2018. Larrabee has 37 years of experience in restaurant franchising, including the development of the American brands Five Guys, Famous Daves BBQ, Little Caesars, Subway, and Pancheros, Forbes reports.
Lviv Croissants is a Ukrainian international franchise restaurant chain founded in 2015. It specializes in making croissants and has 177 locations in Ukraine, 11 in Poland and 1 in Slovakia. It is part of the Fast Food Franchising Group.
Fast Food Franchising Group LLC was founded in 2015 in Lviv.
The company’s net loss in 2023 amounted to UAH 598.3 thousand compared to UAH 483 thousand of net profit a year earlier. Last year’s revenue increased by 55.1% to UAH 6.939 million, debt increased 9.7 times to UAH 188.9 thousand, while assets decreased by 19% to UAH 1.89 million.
The beneficiaries of the company are PE Firm Infobud, which owns 50% of the shares, Yevhen and Andriy Galitsky (20% each), and Yuriy Zagrodsky (10%).
