Two planes carrying 28 passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship, where an outbreak of hantavirus occurred, landed in the Netherlands on Tuesday, and one of the Dutch hospitals treating a patient with hantavirus has quarantined 12 staff members as a precautionary measure, Reuters reports.
Western media also report that passengers who are not Dutch nationals will be sent for treatment in their home countries.
Employees of the Dutch medical center at the University of Nijmegen have been placed under a six-week preventive quarantine, as it was discovered that updated strict protocols were not followed while handling test samples. The hospital reported that the risk of infection for employees remains “very low.”
According to the latest data, three passengers on the MV Hondius have died from hantavirus: a married couple from the Netherlands and a German citizen.
About ten people tested positive for hantavirus. It was noted that the deceased woman and a British man currently in intensive care in South Africa were found to have the Andes strain of hantavirus. Only this type of hantavirus is transmitted from person to person, the country’s Ministry of Health emphasized. Western media reported that this strain is common in Latin America, particularly in Argentina, where the cruise began.
NAEK ‘Energoatom’ has completed the construction of a key safety facility at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant, and it is currently undergoing the certification process, the company announced on Monday.
“We are taking proactive measures to create a reliable shield for our critical infrastructure. Each such facility provides an additional layer of security for Ukraine’s entire power grid,” said Energoatom CEO Pavlo Kovtoniuk.
The construction was carried out as part of a comprehensive program to strengthen the security of Ukrainian power units under martial law. The goal is to protect critical nuclear power infrastructure from potential external threats.
A production meeting was also held at the Rivne NPP site, attended by the plant’s management, relevant departments, and contractors. Participants discussed the progress of construction on other protective structures and the implementation of new engineering solutions to enhance the resilience of the infrastructure.
Piskivsky Glassworks LLC, a manufacturer of clear glass jars and bottles (PZS, Bucha District, Kyiv Region) increased its net revenue from product sales by 19.4% in January–March 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, reaching UAH 438.6 million.
According to the company’s interim financial statements, it ended the first quarter with a net profit of UAH 1.663 billion, whereas a year earlier it had reported a loss of UAH 37.2 million.
The company generated UAH 19 million in gross profit (compared to a loss of UAH 7.7 million in the first quarter of 2025), and operating profit exceeded UAH 2 billion (driven by “other income,” which amounted to UAH 1.8 billion), whereas last year the loss reached nearly UAH 13 million.
The accumulated loss as of March 31, 2026, amounted to UAH 824.8 million, while at the beginning of the year it was UAH 2.487 billion.
According to the report, exports accounted for 77.7% of total sales (nearly UAH 341 million). Among the importing countries are Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Greece, Romania, Turkey, Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova, and Georgia,
The company lists Francesco Arpaia, Saulite Partikas Grupa SIA, and Ferret LLC as its main clients.
In the first quarter, the plant produced more than 78.4 million units of products (including 72.5 million cans and nearly 6 million bottles), which amounts to 375.4 million UAH in monetary terms.
The report notes that following the start of the full-scale invasion, the plant suspended operations; after the furnaces cooled down, work continued from May 2022 to June 2023 to restore production on one of the two furnaces, which was launched in June 2023.
At the same time, it is emphasized that operating only one furnace has implications for the range of finished products: while before the war the plant produced both clear (Flint) and colored (brown and green) glass, it now produces only clear glass.
At the same time, the company managed to increase export shipments again due to changes in the geography of its sales market after they fell in 2023 to 47% of sales volume.
PZS assesses competition in the industry as fierce and notes that some Ukrainian competitor companies, like the Piskivsky Glassworks, have suffered losses and damage as a result of the war.
Among competitors, particularly in the Rivne region, the following are listed: “Consumers-Skl-Zorya” (clear glass bottles and jars), “Kostopil Glass Factory” (glass containers for low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beverages, perfume and canning containers, and liquor bottles), and “Rokytne Glass Factory” (green, brown, and clear glass bottles).
Other manufacturers of similar products include “Malyniivsky Glass Plant” (Chuhuiv District, Kharkiv Region), “Vetropack Gostomel Glass Plant” (Kyiv Region), and “Merefyanska Glass Company” (Kharkiv Region).
Among other challenges facing the industry, the plant cites stagnation amid declining consumer demand in Ukraine, and increased competition and dumping abroad.
“The main task for the next few years is to return to pre-war production volumes, and to do this, we need to resume production at Furnace No. 1,” the report states.
According to the company’s 2025 report, it plans to launch a second glass furnace this year, which will increase production capacity by 75%, enabling it to boost exports and optimize costs.
At the same time, PZS notes, about two-thirds of finished products are planned to be exported to EU countries, where a steady growth in demand for glass containers has been observed over the past few years (an increase of about 5% per year) due to rising interest in environmentally friendly packaging materials.
In 2025, the plant increased its net sales revenue by 12% compared to 2024—to 1.607 billion UAH—while incurring a loss of 227.9 million UAH.
As of the beginning of the second quarter of 2026, the company employed 449 people.
Prices for construction and installation work (CIW) in Ukraine rose by 16.2% in March 2026 compared to March 2025, according to the State Statistics Service (SSS).
According to the statistics agency, prices rose in all segments of construction from March 2026 to March 2025: in residential construction by 15.3% (up 9.2% compared to the previous month), in non-residential construction by 17.3% (9.7%), and in civil engineering by 16.1% (9.3%).
In January–March of this year compared to the same period last year, construction material and equipment prices rose by 9.9%, specifically in the residential sector by 9.2%, in the non-residential sector by 10.4%, and in civil engineering by 9.7%.
Compared to the previous quarter, in January–March 2026, construction material prices rose by 6.1%, specifically in residential construction by 5.3%, in non-residential construction by 6.6%, and in civil engineering by 6.1%.
The State Statistics Service also compared current price indicators with the 2021 annual average. Thus, in the first quarter of 2026, prices in the residential sector rose by 83.6%, in the non-residential sector by 84.1%, and in civil engineering by 78.6%.
As reported, in 2025, construction material prices rose by 5.8% compared to the previous year, in 2024 by 7.9%, and in 2023 by 15.8%.
The Kametstal plant, part of Metinvest’s mining and metallurgical group and located at the Dniprovsky Metallurgical Plant (Kamenskoye, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast), has carried out a major overhaul of part of its pulverized coal injection (PCI) equipment in the blast furnace to reduce energy consumption.
According to the company, the efficiency of blast furnace production at Kametstal is inextricably linked to the reliability of the PCF injection technology; therefore, to ensure the stable operation of this equipment, grinding circuit No. 2—a key stage of this year’s modernization of the PCF complex—has been overhauled.
As specified, PFC is an energy resource that serves as a highly efficient carbon component and makes it possible to drastically reduce natural gas consumption or completely eliminate it from the smelting process. Injection of PVP also makes it possible to reduce the consumption of coke and coke equivalent of standard fuel and contributes to increased productivity of blast furnaces.
The PVP section supplies fuel not only to blast furnace production but also to the rotary kilns of the lime-burning shop.
Kametstal was established on the basis of PJSC Dniprovsky Coke Chemical Plant (DKHP) and PJSC Dniprovsky Metallurgical Plant (DMP). It is part of the Metinvest Group.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine—in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions—as well as in European countries. The holding’s main shareholders are the SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of the Metinvest Group.
Despite shelling and destruction, DTEK managed to increase its tax payments to 14 billion in January–March 2026, a 10% increase compared to the same period last year, the energy holding company reported on Monday.
“Nearly 13 billion hryvnias were paid to the central budget, and over 1 billion hryvnias to local budgets,” the company noted.
As explained by DTEK, the group continues to intensively prepare for the coming winter, so it is investing in repairs to thermal power plants and power grids following enemy attacks, and is actively building new renewable energy facilities.
Over 101 billion hryvnias have been invested in both of these areas since the start of the full-scale invasion.
