Business news from Ukraine

Business news from Ukraine

Oil Price Growth Pushes Aviation Fuel Higher and Creates Risks for the Summer Tourist Season – Experts Club

The rise in global oil prices has already led to a noticeable increase in aviation kerosene prices, which is putting additional pressure on airlines and may affect ticket prices during the summer tourist season. This conclusion is contained in an analytical commentary by Experts Club. Amid the escalation in the Middle East, Brent on March 18 rose to $108.56 per barrel, and a day earlier exceeded the $100 per barrel mark.

According to IATA, the global average price of aviation fuel for the latest reporting week increased by 11.2% compared to the previous week and reached $175 per barrel. At the same time, in its December forecast IATA assumed the average price of jet fuel in 2026 would be $88 per barrel with Brent at $62, meaning the current market is already more than twice the industry’s baseline scenario.

An additional indicator comes from the U.S. market: according to AP, the average jet fuel price in the United States rose to $3.99 per gallon compared with about $2.50 two weeks earlier. Reuters also notes that jet fuel prices in the U.S. have risen by more than 50%, while in Europe some airlines have already begun adjusting schedules and fares due to higher fuel costs.

As Experts Club analysts note, the market logic is obvious: aviation fuel remains one of the largest cost items for air carriers alongside personnel, so the sharp rise in kerosene prices will almost inevitably be passed through into airfares, especially on long-haul and resort routes. IATA directly states that jet fuel is one of the largest airline cost items, while AP estimates fuel accounts for around 20-25% of carriers’ expenses.

“We are seeing not just an increase in oil prices as a traded asset, but a direct transmission of the price shock into aviation fuel. If oil remains above $100 per barrel and kerosene stays at extremely high levels, airlines will be forced either to raise fares or to cut part of their flight programs. For the tourism market, this means a more expensive and less predictable summer season,” said Experts Club founder and PhD in Economics Maksym Urakin.

According to him, mass tourist routes are especially vulnerable, where carriers operate with thin margins and high price sensitivity of demand. “Even if ticket price growth is uneven, the very factor of expensive fuel changes market behavior: tour operators form packages more cautiously, airlines revise their route networks, and tourists postpone purchases or choose shorter trips. In such a situation, the summer of 2026 may become a season of high volatility – both in prices and in route load factors,” Urakin noted.

Practical signals of this process have already appeared. Reuters reported that SAS decided to cancel about 1,000 flights in April amid the sharp rise in fuel prices, while AP writes that a number of international airlines have already introduced fuel surcharges or raised base fares. This means that if the current market environment persists, the rise in airfare prices may become one of the key pressure factors on the global tourism market in the upcoming summer season.

Van Gogh Exhibition Featuring Virtual Reality Technology Opens in Kyiv

According to the Interfax-Ukraine Culture project, an international immersive exhibition dedicated to the work of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh will open on April 11 at the VDNG exhibition grounds in Kyiv, the organizers report.

“Visitors will be able to literally find themselves inside Van Gogh’s paintings thanks to large-scale projections, music, and digital technologies,” the organizers note.

The exhibition will be held in Pavilion No. 7 and will run until July 26. It will occupy an area of over 2,000 square meters and combine digital installations, VR effects, and a traditional exhibition showcasing the artist’s life story.

Highlights include a recreated version of the artist’s bedroom, as well as the opportunity to view famous works, including “Starry Night” and “Sunflowers,” in 360° format.

“This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in Van Gogh’s world and experience his art in a new way,” the organizers emphasize.

It is noted that the exhibition has already been presented in a number of cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Dubai, where it was visited by millions of viewers.

As reported, Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Landscape with a Farmhouse” was sold at the TEFAF international art and antiques fair in Maastricht for $13.5 million.

 

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Ukraine ranked 111th in 2026 World Happiness Report

Ukraine ranked 111th in the 2026 World Happiness Report with a score of 4.658 on the life evaluation scale. The ranking was published on March 19 and covers 147 countries.

The top 10 “happiest” countries according to the World Happiness Report 2026 are: Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switzerland.

At the bottom of the ranking are Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Yemen, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, and Tanzania.

According to the report’s methodology, the ranking is based on average life satisfaction scores for 2023–2025 obtained from the Gallup World Poll, and the report itself is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Yugoslav princess from Karadjordjevic dynasty has found herself at the center of investment scandal

According to Serbian Economist, Princess Katarina T. Karadjordjevic has found herself at the center of a financial scandal in the UK after a private investor claimed to have lost 50,000 pounds in a project he invested in, trusting her and her business partner. This was reported by the British Daily Mail.

According to the publication, the investor in question is British dermatologist Robin Russell-Jones, who met the princess in London. Shortly thereafter, her close associate and business partner Sharon Rea offered him the opportunity to invest £50,000 in a purported international project promising returns of up to £4 million. It was claimed that the initiative allegedly had the backing of international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund.

However, the project later turned out to be a sham, and the invested funds disappeared. The investor took the matter to court and won the case, but the money has still not been returned to him. According to the court ruling, Sharon Rea must repay the debt in installments—£100 per month.

The publication notes that Princess Catherine’s collaboration with Rea lasted at least five years. During this time, they promoted a number of international initiatives, including hospital construction projects and the organization of the Tsunami of Sound charity concert series; however, according to the report, none of these projects were ultimately implemented.

When the investor began to doubt the project’s credibility, he tried to contact Princess Katarina to verify information about her partner but received no response. The princess herself did not respond to media inquiries, while some of her acquaintances suggest she may have been misled.

The Karadjordjevic dynasty is a Serbian and Yugoslav royal dynasty that traces its origins to Karadjordje, the leader of the First Serbian Uprising. Members of the dynasty ruled Serbia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1921 to 1941.

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Khorol Mechanical Plant to Hold a Meeting on April 17

According to Fixygen, PJSC “Khorol Mechanical Plant” will hold a general meeting of shareholders on April 17, 2026. Against the backdrop of corporate plans published in early March, this meeting appears particularly significant, as the company previously announced its intention to allocate nearly UAH 20.2 million in dividends from its 2025 net profit of UAH 85.85 million.

Khorol Mechanical Plant was registered in October 1995 in the Poltava region; Mykhailo Mishchenko remains the company’s head.

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State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection is creating unified electronic system, eFood, for business and regulatory oversight

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has adopted a resolution on the launch of a pilot project for a unified state electronic system in the field of food safety and consumer protection—“eFood,” according to a press release from the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection.

According to the statement, the initiative aims to digitize services and state oversight, making processes more transparent and convenient for businesses.

“We are essentially building a new architecture for state control. eFood is about speed, transparency, and trust. The new project is part of a systemic reform of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection aimed at creating a modern digital ecosystem that will meet European standards,” emphasized the agency’s head, Serhiy Tkachuk.

As explained by Solomiya Starosolska, head of the Office of Digitalization, business interaction with the state was previously overly bureaucratic: more than half of the processes were managed in Excel spreadsheets, and registries were fragmented. The new system will consolidate these processes into a single, logical environment.

The “eFood” ecosystem will include a single service portal, electronic user accounts, digital profiles of market operators, a map of regional investment attractiveness, and a mobile app for inspectors with a video recording feature for inspections. Automatic registration of facilities will take a few hours, and the issuance of permits will take 7 to 15 days instead of 30. In the future, the system will consolidate up to 17 registries and enable the provision of over 500,000 services annually.

At launch, “eFood” will cover 9 key services, including facility registration and the submission of feed declarations. Concurrently, the State Register of Market Operators is being launched, which will serve as the core of the system. The pilot project format will allow for testing digital approaches and preparing the legislative framework for the full-scale implementation of the ecosystem.

The reform is being implemented as part of the Association Agreement with the EU and European regulations on food safety. This involves full integration into the European model, ensuring product traceability and digital data exchange.

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