In Ukraine, prices for the resource rose in November, with 9.7 million cubic meters sold. In Europe, spot prices were around €32/MWh, with volatility driven by weather forecasts, sanctions (the 19th EU package), and lower production in Norway. EU underground gas storage facilities were filled to 82.82% of their technical capacity, while Ukraine accumulated over 13 billion cubic meters and began the withdrawal season.
Last week, trading continued for October and November 2025 resources. In general, positions for the purchase and sale of natural gas were formed by the following companies: Ukrnafta, Energo Zbut Trans, Tepla Energetichna Kompaniya, SP BNK, etc.
Starting prices for resources rose during the week. As a result, as of Friday, the average starting price of November resources in the GTS was 3.45% higher than on Monday and amounted to UAH 23,425 excluding VAT.
Tepla Energetichna Kompaniya entered the auction with an offer to sell imported natural gas in the section of the same name with delivery in November to the GTS.
During the past week, only positions for sale were sold. A total of 9,700 thousand cubic meters of natural gas was sold (+28% from the previous week). This entire volume was sold by Ukrnafta – November resource in the UGS. In general, the prices of positions sold last week ranged from 21,085 to 21,415 UAH/thousand cubic meters excluding VAT, which is more than 1,000 UAH higher than the prices of the previous week.
On the short-term natural gas market of the UEB, participants formed bids on the intraday market in the GTS and UGS. In total, agreements were concluded for a total volume of 396 thousand cubic meters (-25% compared to the previous week). By October 24, the weighted average price of KSP had increased by +7.3% compared to October 17.
Last week, geopolitics continued to make headlines but offered little certainty. While on Wednesday, futures for the coming month on gas markets fell by ~2% amid forecasts of higher temperatures in the UK and Europe, which signaled restrained gas demand in November, on Thursday they rose, coinciding with the confirmation of the 19th package of EU sanctions, which will ban imports of Russian LNG from 2027, adding a small premium for geopolitical risk on European hubs. Additionally, this trend is driven by rising domestic demand and reduced production in Norway following the temporary closure of the Oseberg field.
The British gas market followed the European market on Thursday after the US announced sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia’s two largest oil companies. Gas prices in the US rose to $3.46 per million BTU, which is 20% higher than the lows recorded on October 17. The continuation of the upward trend in US gas prices could lead to higher LNG prices and increased delivery costs during the winter.
Prices of contracts with delivery in the corresponding period, EUR/MWh, 24.10.2025
Instrument THE CEGH TTF TGE/POLPX Average value
Day1 33.31 34.83 32.42 39.68 35.06
M+1 33.519 34.75 32.44 38.30 34.75
Q +1 33.94 34.99 32.78 38.58 35.07
S +1 32.12 33.96 30.91 36.42 33.35
Contracts for the month ahead on all analyzed hubs showed a different trend compared to spot prices, falling by an average of 0.75%. Quarterly forward prices were on average 0.17% higher than spot prices. Seasonal forward prices, with an average value of €33.35/MWh, tended to be 4.73% lower than spot prices on average.
The US sanctions coincide with the EU’s decision to implement the 19th package of sanctions against Russia, terminating all short-term LNG supply contracts within six months and completely banning Russian LNG from January 2027, one year ahead of schedule.
Further along the curve, prices fell on Friday morning for most contracts, with declines observed from the summer Sum-26 contract to the winter Win-28 contract, indicating that the previous price increase may have been driven mainly by short-term fundamentals.
EU gas storage levels fell to 82.82% on October 22, which is 9% below the 5-year average. The situation with storage facilities in the EU has remained unchanged for a month and is holding at 82%. There are two competing factors behind this static indicator: last week, gas demand in Europe exceeded seasonal expectations by more than 10%, but LNG supplies have already reached the level of the first half of this year. Europe is likely to enter the heating season with the lowest storage levels since 2015 and has recorded its earliest week of net withdrawal since 2020.
The December LNG futures contract in Asia, the JKM Platts Future index, settled at $403.29 per thousand cubic meters on October 23. Futures for LNG supplied to North-West Europe (LNG North West Europe Marker) closed at $375.36/thousand cubic meters.
European LNG receiving terminals operated at an average capacity of 51.0% on October 22.
LNG stocks in the EU as of October 22, 2025, amounted to 4.874 million cubic meters of LNG, according to Aggregated LNG Storage Inventors.
Natural gas imports from Europe averaged 15 million cubic meters per day (-8 million cubic meters compared to the previous period) with significant fluctuations during the week. Imports came from Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Imports from Poland fluctuated significantly due to repair work. Hungary was the main source of imports. There were no exports. Ukraine’s storage facilities held about 13.1 billion cubic meters of natural gas, roughly the same as last week. On October 22, 1 million cubic meters of natural gas was withdrawn from underground storage facilities.
Source: https://expertsclub.eu/oglyad-czin-na-gaz-v-ukrayini-ta-yevropi/
From October 28 to November 17, 2025, grape growers and winemakers in the Odessa region can apply for grants from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine, with financial support from the Italian government.
According to information on the Ministry of Economy website, winegrowers and winemakers registered in the State Agrarian Register (SAR) who cultivate between 0.5 and 20 hectares of vineyards in the Odessa region are eligible to participate in the program.
Selected participants will be able to receive grant support ranging from $10,000 to $25,000. The amount will depend on production volumes and justified needs.
The new FAO program aims to develop Ukraine’s wine sector by expanding access to modern equipment, quality planting material, and technical support, as well as introducing market-oriented approaches that will ensure the sustainable development of small producers.
According to Shakhnoza Muminova, head of the FAO Office in Ukraine, quoted in the ministry’s publication, the initiative is a step in the long-term cooperation with the Ukrainian government to strengthen the rural economy and restore value chains in the agri-food sector.
The program also provides for technical support, training, and consulting, as well as assistance in implementing a system of protected geographical indications to increase the competitiveness of Ukrainian wines in domestic and foreign markets.
The Ristone Holdings agricultural group is completing the harvest on an area of about 38,000 hectares and is simultaneously finishing sowing winter crops, for which it has allocated 26,800 hectares, the agricultural holding’s press service reported on Facebook.
“Sunflowers were the main crop of this year’s harvest. As planned in the spring, 29,000 hectares were sown with this strategically important and highly profitable crop. As of today, the sunflower harvest from these areas has been completely completed,” the agricultural group stated.
In addition, the holding’s farmers harvested 5.5 thousand hectares of corn and 350 hectares of soybeans, thus completing the 2025 harvesting campaign.
In parallel with the harvest, Ristone Holding farms prepared the soil for the 2026 sowing campaign. The fields were plowed for winter crops, which is a key agronomic measure for moisture accumulation, soil structure improvement, and weed and pest control. The final stage of the autumn work was the sowing of winter crops, which is currently in its final stages.
For the 2026 harvest, the agricultural holding sowed 23,000 hectares with winter wheat and 3,800 hectares with winter rapeseed.
The Ristone Holdings group of companies is a vertically integrated agricultural holding company, which includes: Dnipromlyn LLC, Bakery No. 10 LLC, Orilsky United Elevator LLC, Agrofirma Orilskaya LLC, Agroalliance LLC, Agrofirma Victoria State Enterprise, Agrofirma im. Gorkogo LLC, Zlagoda Agricultural Production Cooperative, etc.
Ristone Holdings cultivates 65,800 hectares in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions. It is engaged in the cultivation of grain and industrial crops, animal husbandry, production, and wholesale and retail trade in agricultural products, including flour, bread, bakery products, etc.
The founder and chairman of the supervisory board of Ristone Holdings is Vadym Nesterenko.
According to Eurostat, as of the end of July 2025 there are 4,373,455 citizens of Ukraine under temporary protection in EU countries. Over the month their number increased by 30,980 people, that is approximately by 0.71% compared to the June level — the dynamics are moderate but stable, indicating a continuing, though not surging, movement of people in search of safety. The overwhelming majority of beneficiaries of this regime — about 98.4% — are Ukrainians, which makes the group of aid recipients extremely homogeneous and requires focused integration measures.
The distribution by countries remains concentrated: the key burden is borne by Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. In Germany there are about 1,196,645 people — roughly 27.8% of the total; in Poland — about 992,505 people (around 23%); in the Czech Republic — about 378,420 people (about 8.8%). Taken together this is almost three-fifths of all recipients of protection, therefore it is precisely these economies and their social systems that first react to any changes in inflow: in large agglomerations the issues of housing affordability become acute, the need for school places and language courses grows, and municipal budgets face continuous obligations.
In such conditions, reception policy inevitably shifts to an integration agenda. Coming to the fore are the accelerated recognition of qualifications, intensive language programs, access to kindergartens and schools, as well as reskilling instruments. The labor market becomes the main shock absorber: the faster people move into formal employment, the lower the budgetary burden and the more noticeable the multiplier effect for domestic demand. At the same time, the housing issue remains the key risk: concentration in capital and industrial regions pushes rental rates upward and increases social tension. Effective responses appear to be targeted rent subsidies, accelerated renovation and construction of social housing, as well as a more even distribution of placements among municipalities.
Finally, the predictability of financing and interagency coordination at the EU and national government levels becomes critically important. Even with the current “soft” monthly increase, unreliable sources of funds quickly turn a manageable situation into a problem for local budgets. On the horizon of the coming months, the key indicators of resilience will be the growth rates of protection beneficiaries, the share of those employed, indicators of school and preschool integration, the dynamics of rental rates in concentration regions, and the speed of transition from emergency measures to long-term programs. Overall, the picture of stable but continuing growth with high concentration in Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic requires shifting efforts from short-term aid to systemic integration — precisely this will make it possible to reduce budgetary costs and turn the humanitarian response into a sustainable socio-economic result.
EU, GERMANY, HOUSING, Labor market, MIGRATION, POLAND, REFUGEES, SOCIAL POLICY, TEMPORARY PROTECTION, UKRAINIANS
Employees of the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) notified a Lviv businessman of their suspicions and detained the former chairman of the board of Ukrenergo on suspicion of fraudulent appropriation of funds from the state-owned enterprise EK Ukrenergo.
“Under the procedural guidance of the Office of the Prosecutor General, the SBI notified a Lviv businessman of suspicion and detained the former chairman of the board of Ukrenergo on suspicion of fraudulent appropriation of funds from NEC Ukrenergo,” the SBI reported on its Telegram channel on Tuesday.
“The scheme was organized by a Lviv businessman who had previously been exposed by the SBI for purchasing low-quality clothing for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for more than UAH 1 billion,” the agency said.
According to the bureau, in 2018, during tenders for the reconstruction of the external fencing of substations of the Southern and Western power systems, the official colluded with representatives of a private company.
At that time, as specified by the SBI, he held the position of deputy director for investments at the state-owned enterprise “NPC Ukrenergo.”
“Two contracts were signed between the parties for a total amount of over UAH 68 million. After that, the state-owned enterprise transferred over UAH 13.7 million in advance payments to the contractor, which the perpetrators embezzled,” the bureau said.
The SBI report does not name the individuals involved. They are former Ukrenergo head Volodymyr Kudrytskyi and Lviv businessman Ihor Hrynkevych.
Earlier, a source in law enforcement agencies told Interfax-Ukraine that SBI employees had detained former Ukrenergo head Volodymyr Kudrytskyi in the Lviv region and were preparing to charge him with fraud on an especially large scale.
The agency’s source specified that the case concerns businessman Ihor Hrynkevych and the alleged misappropriation of state-owned company funds during tenders for the reconstruction of power system facilities back in 2018.
After a nighttime incident in Podgorica, where a group of Turkish citizens stabbed a local resident during a conflict, the government of Milojko Spajić announced a temporary suspension of the visa-free regime for Turkish citizens—a political signal that security and entry controls take priority over previous openness (visa-free travel had been in place since 2008). The decision was confirmed by leading international media and government sources, which record both the incident itself and the authorities’ response formula—“a temporary pause + a rules review,” with the prospect of further consultations with Ankara on a new visa regime.
According to police reports, after a weekend marked by tension in the capital, several dozen foreigners—primarily citizens of Türkiye and Azerbaijan—were detained; President Jakov Milatović publicly called for calm and condemned retaliatory attacks on Turkish citizens and their property. This set of actions—stepped-up patrols, selective checks of legal stay, and preventive detentions—aligns with the logic of a “rapid stabilization” of order following stabbing incidents.
The socio-political backdrop has sharpened: anti-Turkish slogans were heard on the streets of Podgorica, and acts of vandalism were recorded—in particular, a business owned by a Turkish citizen in the city center was trashed, and a Turkish owner’s car was set on fire. These episodes heighten the risk of “collective responsibility,” when a single criminal offense triggers a chain of xenophobic reactions that harm people’s safety and the business climate.
The interstate dimension is developing in parallel: Türkiye’s foreign ministry promptly reached out to the Montenegrin prime minister and security officials, insisting on guarantees of rights and protection for Turkish citizens; Podgorica, for its part, declares “intensive consultations” with Ankara to find a model that combines public safety with continued economic interaction. This means that the “pause” in visa-free travel is not only a punitive gesture but also an instrument for reformatting access rules: new forms of short-term visas, mandatory registration procedures, or higher criteria for business visitors are possible.
The economic projection of the situation is ambiguous. Turkish business in Montenegro is a notable player in trade, hospitality, and real estate, especially along the Adriatic coast; rolling back visa-free travel will almost certainly reduce the mobility of entrepreneurs and workers, complicate seasonal planning, and slow transactional processes. Estimates of the size of the Turkish community vary: a number of sources cite roughly 13.3 thousand officially resident Turkish citizens (which is higher than the 2–3 thousand estimates mentioned in some materials), and for this group a clear, predictable procedure for extending stays and conducting business is crucial to avoid an outflow of investment and a “cooling” of employment in tourism and services.
At the domestic political level, the authorities’ decision serves several functions at once: it demonstrates control and sensitivity to the demand for security; cuts off the argument about “open gates” for offenders; and simultaneously mitigates reputational risks vis-à-vis the EU, with which Montenegro is negotiating membership, by aligning migration regimes and public-order standards with European practice. However, excessive “toughness” without simultaneously restraining xenophobia may provoke an escalation of ethnic tension and inflict long-term damage on the country’s investment image—this is precisely why the president’s message about the inadmissibility of attacks on Turks is a systemically important marker of balance.
From this follow the near-term scenarios. The first is “controlled thawing”: after stabilization and de-escalation of violence, and after technical parameters are agreed with Ankara, Podgorica restores simplified entry in an updated format (for example, through mandatory declarations of travel purpose or expedited category-based visas for investors and workers). The second is a “long pause”: the visa regime becomes entrenched, criteria for verifying the very purpose of entry and the legality of stay grow stricter, and Turkish companies’ business processes become costlier and slower, with a risk of investment being reallocated to neighboring jurisdictions. The third is “social turbulence”: if law-enforcement response to anti-Turkish pogroms is unsystematic, public sentiment will radicalize, and even a properly calibrated visa filter will not compensate for the loss of investor and tourist confidence. At present, government communications—about consultations with Türkiye and safeguarding public order—indicate that the bet is on the first, compromise path.
In summary, Montenegro’s decision to suspend visa-free travel is a system-level “alarm signal”: the authorities are simultaneously extinguishing a situational security crisis and trying to revise the architecture of migration procedures according to standards of control and predictability. However, the sustainability of this course will be determined not only by the strictness of border filters, but also by the state’s ability to protect lawful residents and entrepreneurs from collective punishment, hold perpetrators accountable, and preserve channels of economic cooperation with Türkiye—a partner that is already demanding security guarantees for its citizens and is ready to negotiate new rules of the game.
CRIME, INVESTMENTS, MONTENEGRO, PODGORICA, PUBLIC SENTIMENT, TURKEY
