The U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) budget request for Ukraine for fiscal year (FY) 2025, from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, is $481.6 million, according to materials on the agency’s websites, whose assistance to foreign countries has been frozen by the new U.S. administration for 90 days.
“We must ensure the strategic failure of Putin’s war against Ukraine by supporting the Ukrainian government and people,” the document justifies the allocation of funds.
In particular, it is noted that $321 million is intended for fully or partially managed USAID accounts “to help respond to growing economic, development, and security needs, including strengthening energy infrastructure after systematic attacks by Russia, improving cybersecurity, developing the agricultural sector to create exports, and supporting civil society, including activists, journalists, and independent media.”
According to the document, the funds requested for 2025 exceed the FY2023 budget, when they amounted to $411.1 million, but that year additional budgets for Ukraine were allocated for a total of another $18.94 billion.
As noted on the USAID Ukraine page, since the beginning of the war on February 24, 2022, the agency has allocated $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance, and $30 billion in direct budget support.
The FY2025 budget request for Ukraine, in particular, includes $71 million for healthcare, including $53 million and $12 million for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, $27.1 million for climate goals, $22.6 million for agriculture, $91.1 million for democracy, human rights and governance, $13 million for digital technologies, $21.2 million for gender policy, and $2.4 million for higher education.
Already this weekend, Ukrainian recipients of USAID funding began to report that it had been terminated.
In particular, the Veteran Hub announced the forced suspension of its Vinnytsia branch and the Support Line for an indefinite period, which had been operating continuously since 2020 and March 2022, respectively.
“Since 2018, we have refrained from public fundraising because we believe that donations are needed primarily for the army. Today we are forced to publicly ask for support for the first time,” the organization wrote.
The suspension of USAID programs was also felt by MP Nina Yuzhanina, who was supposed to go on a study visit on Sunday as part of a delegation organized under the USAID RADA Next Generation (RANG) program in cooperation with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WF). “But late last night we were informed that the visit was canceled,” she wrote on Facebook.
“At a time of extreme hardship for Ukraine, stopping humanitarian projects is tantamount to a catastrophe. The abrupt cessation of funding creates huge risks for Ukraine,” Olesya Olenytska, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Eastern Europe Foundation, wrote on Facebook.
According to her, such a decision will lead, among other things, to the termination of the construction of shelters for safe education during rocket attacks by the Russian Federation, the termination of financial support for schools and hospitals in the frontline regions of the country, and the destruction of established projects in the humanitarian sphere.
Over the weekend, the Financial Times reported that officials from the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs have asked new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make an exception for Ukraine in the freeze on US aid to foreign countries, similar to the exception made for Israel and Egypt (their budget requests for FY2025 are $3.3 billion and $1.433 billion, respectively).
“We don’t know yet whether this request will be approved – in whole or in part – but there are positive signals coming from Washington,” the FT quoted an email sent to USAID staff in Ukraine on Saturday, January 25.
“Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest telecommunications operator, and its parent company VEON have confirmed their intention to invest a total of $1 billion in the country between 2023 and 2027, First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko said following a meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) with VEON CEO and founder Augie Fabella.
“No less important is the potential listing of Kyivstar on Nasdaq, which will open Ukraine’s access to global capital markets. In addition, global technology partnerships with companies such as Starlink will support sustainable growth,” Svyrydenko said in a post on X.
Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov, who took part in the meeting, toldInterfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the Davos Ukrainian Breakfast organized by the Pinchuk Foundation that the company has already invested more than $400 million of the $1 billion in investments it had declared.
“We are planning to continue, nothing has changed,” Komarov emphasized, speaking about increasing these investments to $1 billion.
The CEO noted that the first priority is to invest in critical infrastructure, network, and new technologies. According to him, Kyivstar is on track to meet its 2024 target, and the results achieved, in particular in terms of increasing data transfer speeds, are encouraging.
Komarov added that the company is also taking steps towards possible inorganic business expansion. According to him, Kyivstar has made a purchase of a small fixed-line operator in 2024.
“We are looking at other goals, including those within the digital ecosystem,” the CEO said.
He also said that an important task for the Ukrainian government is to attract domestic and foreign investors and unite with business to improve the investment climate and business opportunities.
“Kyivstar – as of September 2024, Kyivstar served about 23.3 million mobile subscribers and more than 1.1 million home Internet subscribers in Ukraine. The company provides services using a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 4G, Big Data, Cloud solutions, cybersecurity services, digital TV, etc.
In mid-January this year, VEON announced the signing of a protocol of intent to place a part of Kyivstar shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange through the SPAC company Cohen Circle Acquisition Corp (CCIRU).
On Friday, Forbes Ukraine reported that Kyivstar had filed an application with the Antimonopoly Committee late last year to buy Uklon, a digital taxi service.
In 2024, the number of cattle in Ukraine decreased by 126.7 thousand heads due to the challenges of war and the forced relocation of farms from the frontline regions, the Association of Milk Producers (AMP) reported.
“The number of cows decreased mainly in households. However, dairy farms continue to work to increase productivity in the face of war and increased the number of cows in December,” said Giorgi Kukhaleishvili, an analyst at the Dairy Association.
The industry association referred to the data of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, according to which as of January 1, 2025, 2 million 29.5 thousand heads of cattle, including 1 million 177.7 thousand cows, are kept in the private and industrial sector of Ukraine. At the same time, the number of cattle in Ukraine decreased by 149.2 thousand heads (-7%) compared to December 1, 2024, and the number of cows decreased by 39 thousand heads (-3%), compared to January 2024 – by 126.7 thousand heads (-6%), including cows – by 85.2 thousand heads (-7%).
The AMP clarified that about 45% of animals are kept at industrial enterprises, and 55% – in households.
The industrial sector contains 917.6 thousand heads of cattle, which is 300 heads (+0.03%) more than as of December 1, 2024. The number of cows amounted to 378.5 thousand cows and increased by 3 thousand heads (+0.8%) over the past month. Over the past year, the number of cattle at the enterprises decreased by 2.2 thousand heads (-0.2%). The number of cows on dairy farms decreased by 3.7 thousand heads (-1%).
There are 1 million 111.9 thousand cattle in the private household sector, which is 149.5 thousand heads (-13%) less than on December 1, 2024. As of January 1, 2025, the number of cows in households amounted to 799.2 thousand heads, which is 42.2 thousand heads (-5%) less than a month ago. Over the past year, the number of cattle in households has decreased by 124.5 thousand heads (-11%), and the number of cows has decreased by 81.5 thousand heads (-10%).
Kukhaleishvili noted that the reduction of cattle has been taking place in Ukraine for many years due to the lack of an effective state program to support dairy farming. The decline in the number of cattle accelerated after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. A typical situation for the frontline regions is the death of a certain number of cattle as a result of shelling by the Russian occupiers. In addition, farmers have left many cows in the occupied territories that are not accounted for.
“Today, there are prerequisites for the relocation of farms from Dnipropetrovs’k and Sumy regions to other regions of Ukraine in the context of intensified Russian missile and bomb attacks on border and frontline settlements. Farmers will only be able to transfer part of their livestock, as most farms in Ukraine were built in the 70s and 80s and no longer meet the requirements for keeping animals. The lack of premises suitable for keeping cows creates preconditions for further reduction of the number of cows,” the AMP noted.
The business association emphasized that many farmers do not invest in increasing the number of cows during the war and experience a shortage of working capital. In addition, farmers’ production costs are rising faster than the price of finished products due to rising feed costs, electricity costs, hryvnia devaluation, and a decline in the purchasing power of the population. Household farms are the most vulnerable to these challenges, as the decline in cattle numbers is occurring at a faster pace. Enterprises, on the other hand, proved to be more resilient to the effects of the war.
“There is a cautious optimism about the increase in the number of dairy farms in relatively safe regions of Ukraine, which, despite the war, are modernizing existing and new facilities and increasing the number of highly productive cows,” summarized the AMP and added that at least 40 farms are currently implementing these measures.
In 2024, TAS Insurance Group (Kyiv) paid UAH 1.975 billion under the concluded insurance contracts, which is 47.3% more than the company’s indemnities for 2023.
According to the insurer’s website, more than a quarter of the total volume of payments, or 27.3%, fell on hull insurance – UAH 540 million, which is 34.1% higher than the corresponding figure for the previous year, 32.5%, or UAH 642.3 million, on MTPL (+30.7%), 21.8%, or UAH 430.8 million, on Green Card (+81%).
The share of VHI in the group’s claims portfolio amounted to 14.9%, or UAH 293.6 million (+74.5%) in 2024.
Under property insurance contracts, TAS Group paid UAH 12.92 million (+20.5%) in the reporting period. Other insurance contracts paid UAH 55.7 million (+84.4%).
TAS Insurance Group was registered in 1998. It is a universal company offering more than 80 types of insurance products in various types of voluntary and compulsory insurance. It has an extensive regional network: 28 regional directorates and branches and 450 sales offices throughout Ukraine.
PJSC Ukrnafta is working on implementing projects to generate energy from its own gas with a total capacity of up to 370 MW.
According to the company’s press release, this was announced by Duncan Nightingale, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Ukrnafta, during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
He thanked the governments of Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the United States, as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for their support on the path to sustainable development and invited new partners to join the implementation of ambitious promising projects.
“We need to invest in Ukraine now. If you wait for the war to end, you may lose the most profitable projects,” Nightingale emphasized.
For his part, EBRD Vice President Matteo Patrone noted the positive financial results achieved by the company and improvements in the management system.
“They (Ukrnafta – IF-U) have demonstrated not only excellent financial results, but also true corporate governance. This is the achievement of Sergiy (Koretsky) and the Board. If two years ago I had been asked whether we would support Ukrnafta, I would have said no. But what has happened over the past 18 months is simply amazing,” he said.
“Ukrnafta is Ukraine’s largest oil producer and operator of a national network of filling stations. In March 2024, the company took over the management of Glusco’s assets and operates 547 filling stations – 462 owned and 85 managed.
The company is implementing a comprehensive program to restore operations and update the format of its filling stations. Since February 2023, the company has been issuing its own fuel coupons and NAFTAKarta cards, which are sold to legal entities and individuals through Ukrnafta-Postach LLC.
“Ukrnafta holds 92 special permits for commercial development of fields. It has 1832 oil and 154 gas production wells on its balance sheet.
Ukrnafta’s largest shareholder is Naftogaz of Ukraine with a 50%+1 share.
In November 2022, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine decided to transfer to the state a share of corporate rights of the company owned by private owners, which is currently managed by the Ministry of Defense.
Ukraine is planning to open refugee return centers in several European countries, Denik N reported on Friday.
“After almost three years of full-scale Russian invasion, Ukraine is preparing plans to return some of the millions of refugees to their homeland. Therefore, it intends to open centers in several European countries to facilitate their return,” Denik N reports.
Last week, Ukraine opened its first center in Berlin in cooperation with Germany. Ukraine has also discussed this project with Poland. Another similar center may be established in the Czech Republic. According to Denik N, a meeting of officials from the two countries to discuss the creation of a similar center is scheduled for next week in Prague.
