Ukraine needs to boost its presence in Sub-Saharan Africa and shift from exporting raw materials to investing in processing, as current supplies amount to only $280 million per year in a market worth $10 trillion, said Artem Gudkov, head of the Ukrainian-African Trade Mission, at the Forbes Agro conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
“The total volume of the African market is about $10 trillion in GDP in terms of purchasing power parity. For Ukraine, this is a huge potential and an opportunity to gain its subjectivity. However, as of now, the total volume of Ukrainian exports to Sub-Saharan Africa is only $280 million per year for 1.2 billion people. We supply less there than to neighboring Bulgaria,” he stressed.
Gudkov said that Russia is waging a food war against Ukraine on this continent and has introduced an “all or nothing” policy. According to him, if individual countries plan to purchase agricultural products from someone other than Russia, the aggressor threatens to stop supplies to the region altogether.
According to the head of the trade mission, Russia is already moving towards total control of logistics. In particular, the aggressor is negotiating with the Tanzanian government to build its own processing terminal in the port of Dar es Salaam, which will enable it to dictate the terms of wheat and corn supplies across the entire east coast of Africa.
Gudkov believes that the time of “simple imports” is over, so Ukrainian agribusiness needs to integrate into value-added chains directly in the region. African governments and businesses are increasingly interested in the transfer of Ukrainian technologies, not just the purchase of raw materials.
He recalled the European Global Gateway program, which provides EUR 150 billion to finance projects in Africa. According to Gudkov, Ukrainian businesses can become stakeholders in these funds by exporting equipment, elevators, and engineering solutions rather than raw materials.
The expert noted that Ukraine’s experience of working in wartime is unique for African countries, which also face security risks. The mission is already discussing the potential for implementing Ukrainian agricultural processing clusters on the continent.
“We have the opportunity to turn our economic front into an offensive as well. Russia is actively exporting food products. If we cannot influence oil, we can destroy their food ties through our own expansion,” the head of the mission concluded.
The Ukrainian-African trade mission promotes the entry of domestic enterprises into the markets of Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the export of processing technologies, agricultural machinery, and the creation of joint ventures.
Russian troops carried out about 1,200 combined strikes on Ukraine’s railway infrastructure in 2025, which is one of the three key problems of the season for agricultural exports, said Valery Tkachov, deputy director of the commercial department of Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ).
“The most painful thing for us is that our employees are dying under enemy fire. More than 1,000 railway workers have already been killed during the full-scale war. This is the most difficult challenge, which cannot be measured only by technical indicators,” he said at the Forbes Agro conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
Tkachov named security as the first systemic problem. Last year alone, the enemy carried out 1,200 attacks on railway energy facilities, rolling stock, and control centers in an attempt to completely stop the movement of export cargo.
Tkachov named the second critical problem as restrictions on the external power supply to the network due to strikes on the energy sector, which directly reduces the throughput capacity of key trunk lines. In particular, after the shelling of the Kolosivsky passage in the south and the Kamyanets-Podilsky junction in the west, Ukrzaliznytsia was forced to switch to the use of diesel locomotives on a massive scale.
This leads to a significant slowdown in train traffic, restrictions on train weight, and an increase in transportation costs due to the high cost of diesel fuel compared to electricity. The third set of problems in the work of Ukrzaliznytsia, according to Tkachov, covers economic and political barriers.
This particularly concerns restrictions on western land crossings from neighboring countries and low demand for Danube ports. Despite the availability of alternative routes through Reni and Izmail, agribusiness still prefers the ports of Greater Odessa, which creates an uneven load on the infrastructure.
The deputy director of the UZ department assured that the railway network remains stable, but its efficiency is still critically dependent on the stability of the power system and the security situation on the southern approaches to sea terminals.
IMK Agricultural Holding reduced its loan portfolio to $18 million by the end of 2025 and plans to reduce this figure to $10 million by the end of 2026, the company’s CEO Oleksandr Verzhikhovsky said at the Forbes Agro conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
“We have always had access to financing from international and Ukrainian banks and have actively used these opportunities. I remember the times in 2021 when we could get loans from Ukrainian commercial banks at 3-4% per annum in foreign currency. Of course, after the start of the full-scale invasion, financial institutions cannot offer such conditions, so we are gradually reducing our credit profile,” he said.
According to the CEO, the company is undergoing a long process of reducing its debt burden. To understand the dynamics, he noted that in 2014, the holding’s credit profile was $140 million. By the end of 2025, this figure had been reduced to $18 million. According to the company’s plans, provided the situation remains stable, the credit portfolio is planned to be reduced to $10 million by the end of 2026.
Against the backdrop of reduced lending, IMC switched to using its own earned funds to invest in its rolling stock and bring the company into compliance with environmental requirements. At the same time, in 2023, the holding became one of the few companies to attract a new loan from the EBRD in the amount of $11 million for the purchase of 75 grain cars to develop alternative export routes. Currently, these cars mainly provide internal logistics.
Verzhikhovsky also emphasized that cooperation with international financial institutions (IFC, EBRD) remains an important factor for IMC in improving the company’s status and the quality of corporate governance.
IMK Agroholding is an integrated group of companies operating in the Sumy, Poltava, and Chernihiv regions (northern and central Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators, and warehouses segments. The land bank is about 120,000 hectares, storage capacity is 554,000 tons for the 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In January-September 2025, IMC increased its net profit by 43% compared to the same period in 2024, to $67.5 million. The agricultural holding’s revenue for the reporting period decreased by 16% to $118.6 million, while gross profit increased by 6% to $93.2 million and normalized EBITDA increased by 24% to $88 million.
Serhiy Grigorovich, co-founder of Ukrainian studio GSC Game World, is working on a new science fiction project called S.T.R.A.N.G.E.R., he told a correspondent from the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
“We are creating not just a game, but an immersive leap. S.T.R.A.N.G.E.R. will incorporate all the best that we have developed over more than 33 years of work by various teams within the company, but at the same time will offer fans technology and an approach that the industry has not yet seen,” said Grigorovich.
According to him, the S.T.R.A.N.G.E.R. Bermuda SOS project will transport players to a world after a global nuclear catastrophe and combine the achievements of previous games with new technological solutions, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence.
Grigorovich also announced the parallel development of a cryptocurrency project, without specifying details.
He recalled that as executive producer, he participated in the creation of a number of well-known game brands, including Cossacks, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., American Conquest, Heroes of Annihilated Empires, and Alexander.
Serhiy Hryhorovych founded GSC Game World in 1995 in Kyiv. The studio gained international popularity thanks to the Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. The company’s latest major release was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, which came out on November 20, 2024, for PC and Xbox Series X|S.
Grigorovich, GSC Game World, S.T.R.A.N.G.E.R, science fiction
The Ukrainian Fire and Technological Safety Union, as a nationwide professional public organization that brings together experts, manufacturers, designers, and specialists in the field of fire and industrial safety, officially declares its support for Kovlar Group LLC in connection with the dissemination of information that shows signs of manipulation and damages the business reputation of the company and the industry as a whole.
Kovlar Group LLC is a member of the Union and actively participates in the organization’s professional activities aimed at improving fire safety in Ukraine. The company’s director, Konstantin Kalafat, heads the specialized committee on fire protection, which testifies to his expertise and professional authority among industry representatives.
We are confident in his clear pro-Ukrainian position, dedication to the state, and profession. Over many years of activity, particularly in the context of full-scale war, he has consistently demonstrated civic responsibility, support for the Ukrainian industry, and active participation in professional and public initiatives. In the professional community, Kostyantyn Kalafat is known as a principled specialist, patriot, and person dedicated to the development of the Ukrainian fire safety sector.
The company’s activities in the field of development and application of fire protection materials are carried out within the framework of current legislation, in compliance with the requirements of regulatory and legal acts and industry standards. The company cooperates systematically with the professional community and is open to expert dialogue.
We emphasize that the dissemination of unverified, distorted, or manipulative information harms not only individual businesses but also overall confidence in the fire safety market and Ukrainian manufacturers.
The Ukrainian Union of Fire and Technogenic Safety calls on media representatives and the public to adhere to the principles of objectivity and fact-checking. If necessary, the Union is ready to provide professional explanations and reserves the right to appeal to the competent authorities to protect the legitimate interests of our organization’s members.
The All-Ukrainian Public Organization “Ukrainian Union of Fire and Technogenic Safety” (USFTS) was established in 2004. Until July 30, 2010, the organization was called the “Ukrainian Union of Manufacturers of Fire Protection Products and Services.” The USFBS was registered by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on October 19, 2004, under No. 2163.
The USFBS consists mainly of collective members, i.e., labor collectives of enterprises, institutions, and organizations, and individual members, i.e., individuals working in the field of fire and man-made safety.
The main goal of the organization is to carry out activities aimed at improving the environmental situation by promoting the development and implementation of means and methods of fire protection and man-made safety, protecting the domestic market for fire and man-made safety products, and the common interests of its members.
