Against the backdrop of an acute housing shortage and record low vacancy rates, the Zurich authorities are strengthening their approach to the “fair allocation” of affordable housing, including through restrictions on under-occupancy, so that large apartments are not occupied by single people.
This is not a general ban on the entire rental market, but primarily on the city’s housing stock (municipal, including subsidized, apartments), where strict minimum occupancy rules are already in place: “the number of rooms minus one” equals the minimum number of occupants. For example, a 4.5-room apartment must be occupied by at least three people, and if it remains underoccupied after a set period, the tenant must move out.
The background to the decision is the extremely low proportion of vacant housing. According to city data, as of June 1, 2025, there were 235 vacant apartments in Zurich, and the vacancy rate remained at 0.1%.
At the same time, the city is promoting its updated housing strategy, Programm Wohnen 2026, which confirms the goal of increasing the share of non-profit (gemeinnützig) rental housing to one-third by 2050. The documents indicate that the share of such apartments is currently around 27%, and that around 25,000 additional non-commercial apartments will be needed to achieve the goal.
The city’s housing fund is a separate financial instrument: a model worth CHF 300 million (CHF 100 million in property loans and CHF 200 million in framework loans) has been approved as a mechanism to support the creation of more affordable housing, with funds from the fund to be disbursed starting in 2025.
In a broader context, the city is also discussing the extension of similar principles (including verification of living conditions and minimum occupancy) to the segment of “affordable” apartments owned by private owners, if they are rented out under preferential rules.
Demand for short trips within one to two hours of the metropolis is steadily growing: 69% of Ukrainians need this type of recreation, Artur Lupashko, founder of Ribas Hotels Group, told Interfax-Ukraine.
“According to a survey of regular guests of Ribas Hotels, 69% of Ukrainians want to recharge their batteries without having to travel long distances. It is this demand that has generated interest in short suburban vacations,” he said.
According to Lupashko, most popular tourist destinations require significant travel time, which makes one- or two-day trips ineffective. In line with the latest trends, the most popular are complexes focused on short suburban vacations.
Overall, the demand for short-term vacations among city dwellers has a positive impact on the financial performance of such hotels. In particular, in January 2026, compared to January 2025, occupancy rates in Odessa hotels increased by 7%, and revenues by 25-28%.
In the Kyiv region, in the new cottage town of Mandra Petrichor (Makariv district), demand is increasing occupancy on weekdays and leading to 100% room reservations on weekends. That is why, after the opening of the first phase of Mandra Petrichor, where 20 A-frame cottages are available for booking, the launch of the second phase is planned for 2026. In general, the project envisages three conceptually different phases, focused on different types of recreation — for couples, families with children, and groups of friends.
Ribas Hotels Group is an international full-cycle management company and hotel business ecosystem founded in 2014 in Odesa. It brings together the entire process — from site selection, design, and construction to management, franchising, and investment. Ribas Hotels Group is the only hotel group that independently covers all stages of hotel project creation and development.
The company’s portfolio includes 56 projects under construction, launch, or management, including in Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, and Bali. The company develops 3-, 4-, and 5-star city and resort hotels under the Ribas Hotels, Ribas Rooms, WOL home + hotel, and Mandra Moments brands. The operator’s total room capacity is over a thousand rooms.
Mine action operators (MAOs) completed the clearance of 1,340 hectares of land in January 2026 as part of the state program to compensate for the cost of demining agricultural land, according to the press service of the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture.
According to the published data, 12 agreements were executed in January, under which operators received UAH 76.43 million in payments. The average cost of demining 1 hectare of land under the program was UAH 57,100. In addition, eight new agreements were signed last month to clear 3,560 hectares at a total cost of UAH 258.68 million.
In total, since the program began, as of February 1, 2026, 73 contracts have been completed, allowing 13,630 hectares of agricultural land to be returned to use. The total cost of the work performed amounted to UAH 789.32 million. Currently, 98 agreements are being implemented to clear 19,310 hectares at a total cost of UAH 1,181.48 million.
The ministry’s infographic also reflects the growth of the sector’s capabilities: as of early February, there are 134 certified PMD operators and 297 demining machines operating in Ukraine. Thus, during January, the number of operators increased by two, and the fleet of special equipment was replenished with three machines.
The state program to compensate for the cost of demining agricultural land is funded under the EU’s Ukraine Facility. At the same time, in January, 40 veterans and women from the families of combatants completed training in non-technical survey of territories as part of a UNDP project and were employed by the state-owned enterprise Ukroboronservice.
The Ministry of Economy added that Ukraine used the GRIT digital platform for the first time to develop a humanitarian demining plan for 2026, which identified 5,312 hectares of priority areas for clearance at the expense of the state.
The international financial service NovaPay (TM NovaPay) from the Nova group has placed the entire series of “M” bonds, issued by its subsidiary NovaPay Credit, with a nominal value of UAH 200 million, while 11 of the previous 12 series were issued with a nominal value of UAH 100 million each, and another one – UAH 90 million.
As stated in the company’s announcement on Friday, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) approved the placement report on January 29, 2026, while the bonds were issued in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Like most NovaPay bond series, the M series bonds will be used in repo transactions, which the company promotes as an alternative to bank deposits: the bonds are issued in denominations of UAH 1,000 for three years with a coupon payment at a rate of 18% per annum upon maturity.
The funds raised from the bond issue are planned to be used for lending operations to legal entities (20%) and individuals (80%).
NovaPay emphasized that as of early 2026, more than 7,100 customers had become owners of the service’s corporate bonds for a total amount of UAH 1.25 billion.
As reported, NovaPay Credit increased its net profit by 1.8 times in January-September 2025 compared to the same period last year, to UAH 101.56 million, but according to the results of the year, it was planned to bring it to UAH 518.9 million, and in 2026 to increase it to UAH 1 billion 30.6 million by increasing net interest income from UAH 802.1 million to UAH 1 billion 515.1 million.
In total, during 2023-2025, NovaPay carried out 12 bond issues with a total nominal value of UAH 1 billion 190 million. Securities of all series, except for three, are used for the REPO operations program as an alternative to bank deposits. They are available for purchase in the NovaPay mobile application, and interest payments on them are scheduled to be made once upon redemption. Interest on bonds for institutional investors is paid quarterly. They also have an annual offer, and the nominal yield for the first year of circulation is 18% per annum. Series “K” became the third for institutional investors.
In September 2025, the service redeemed two-year Series C bonds worth UAH 100 million, which it placed among institutional investors. The issuer’s portfolio still has another series, Series I, of bonds of this type worth UAH 90 million.
NovaPay was founded in 2001 as an international financial service, part of the Nova group (“Nova Poshta”), providing online and offline financial services in Nova Poshta branches. According to the website, the company employs about 13,000 people in more than 3,600 Nova Poshta branches throughout Ukraine. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, the company accounts for about 35% of the total volume of domestic money transfers.
NovaPay was the first non-bank financial institution in Ukraine to receive an extended license from the NBU in 2023, which allowed it to open accounts and issue cards, and was also the first non-bank to launch its own financial application with a wide range of financial services at the end of last year.
The Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced the allocation of EUR 500,000 to support Ukraine’s energy sector.
“Slovenia has reaffirmed its solidarity with Ukraine, which is experiencing its worst energy crisis since the start of the war. We will add EUR 500,000 to support Ukraine’s energy sector,” the ministry said in a statement on social media on Friday.
The country’s Foreign Ministry also reports that since the beginning of Russian aggression, Slovenia has already allocated EUR 61 million to help Ukraine.
The week of February 2-6, 2026, was marked by a sharp risk-off mode: BTC fell to around $60,000 at one point, then rebounded, but still showed its worst weekly performance since the end of 2022.
By Friday, Bitcoin had recovered to $65,894 (+4.4% for the day), but remained down approximately 14% for the week.
Ethereum was around $1,889 by the end of the week, compared to $2,344 at the beginning of the week (approximately -19%).
XRP fell from approximately $1.62 to $1.30 (about -20%).
Solana fell from approximately $104 to $84 (about -19%).
The key blow came on February 5: the market saw a “sell-off day” comparable in scale to the worst sessions since 2022, amid de-risking and shoulder exits.
A number of factors then came into play: the weakness of risky assets, nervousness around macro expectations, and a rapid “reversal” of positioning from cautious to defensive.
Against the backdrop of the decline in BTC, outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs intensified: in just one session of the week, net outflows amounted to about $545 million, and in two consecutive days – about $817 million.
At the same time, the market experienced a wave of liquidations: in one day, the volume of liquidations in crypto derivatives exceeded $1.4 billion (according to aggregate estimates).
On February 6, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 9 points — the “extreme fear” zone, a level that the media compared to the period of FTX stress.
If ETF outflows and liquidations begin to subside, the market may hold on to the rebound as “technical.” If flows remain negative and risk assets generally weaken, pressure on crypto will continue (especially on altcoins with high beta sensitivity).
