Agroholding Agraine has begun sowing winter rapeseed in the Cherkasy, Kharkiv, and Zhytomyr regions, with over 1,000 hectares already sown, according to the agroholding’s press service on Facebook.
The agricultural holding specified that sowing in the 2025 season is early and began on August 2 thanks to favorable soil moisture conditions. No-till farming and direct sowing are used to preserve the soil.
“Early sowing will allow for friendly germination, and reducing the area will maintain soil fertility in the long term,” the company said with confidence.
At the same time, Agrain emphasized that compared to last year, the area under winter rapeseed has been reduced by almost 60% to optimize crop rotation.
“Reducing the area allows us to maintain proper crop rotation, preserve soil fertility, and return rapeseed to rotation at the optimal time,” the agricultural holding explained.
Agrain is engaged in the cultivation and storage of grain and oilseeds, as well as livestock farming. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, the agricultural holding company comprised 11 agricultural enterprises. It cultivated about 110,000 hectares in the Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, and Cherkasy regions.
The holding company is owned by SAS Investcompagnie (France).
In January-July 2025, Ukraine increased imports of aluminum and aluminum products by 20.1% to $300.252 million (in July – $45.832 million). Exports of aluminum and aluminum products during this period increased by 33.1% compared to the same period in 2024, to $85.707 million (in July – $14.839 million).
Aluminum is widely used as a structural material. The main advantages of aluminum are its lightness, malleability, corrosion resistance, high thermal conductivity, and non-toxicity of its compounds. In particular, these properties have made aluminum extremely popular in the manufacture of kitchen utensils, aluminum foil in the food industry, and for packaging. The first three properties have made aluminum the main raw material in the aviation and aerospace industries (recently, it has been replaced by composite materials, primarily carbon fiber). After construction and the production of packaging—aluminum cans and foil—the largest consumer of aluminum is the energy sector.
In 2024-2025, medium and large businesses in Ukraine will more often choose private clouds – due to the requirements for data control and compliance with security standards. The trend has intensified against the backdrop of war and regulatory requirements, notes Volodymyr Bjelov (GigaCloud) in a column for Interfax-Ukraine.
The key change is the transition from “formal incident plans” to built-in cybersecurity: PAM, SIEM, SOC, encryption, DDoS protection are now considered at the level of cloud solution architecture, rather than as an “add-on”.
GigaCloud is a Ukrainian cloud provider (part of GigaGroup), founded in 2016. The company provides IaaS/PaaS services, virtual data centers, redundancy and continuity solutions (DR/BCP) and GPU clouds. The infrastructure is hosted in data centers in Ukraine and the EU (Kiev, Lviv, Warsaw) with TIER III/IV compliance; the provider has VMware Cloud Service Provider (Premier) statuses and is registered in CSA STAR Registry, portfolio – over 1.5 thousand customers.
ARCHITECTURE, BUSINESS, GigaCloud, private clouds, SECURITY, Vladimir Bjelov
Ukrainian companies in 2025 have noticeably stepped up the implementation of artificial intelligence solutions, but the growth is limited by the lack of specialized specialists and access to infrastructure with NVIDIA GPUs, which have become the “de facto standard” for AI projects. Volodymyr Bjelov, Country Director of GigaCloud in Ukraine, writes about this in his column for Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, the demand for AI is becoming a key driver of cloud services, but at the same time the requirements for security and business continuity are growing, which shifts the focus from pilots to industrial implementations.
GigaCloud is a Ukrainian cloud provider (part of GigaGroup), founded in 2016. The company provides IaaS/PaaS services, virtual data centers, redundancy and continuity solutions (DR/BCP) and GPU clouds. The infrastructure is hosted in data centers in Ukraine and the EU (Kiev, Lviv, Warsaw) with TIER III/IV compliance; the provider has VMware Cloud Service Provider (Premier) statuses and is registered in CSA STAR Registry, portfolio – over 1.5 thousand customers.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/blog/1096980.html
AI-projects, NVIDIA GPUs, UKRAINIAN BUSINESS, Volodymyr Bjelov
The volume of zinc and zinc products supplied to Ukraine in January-July 2025 decreased by 0.5% to $33.204 million (in July – $7.452 million). Zinc exports for the first seven months of the year reached $707,000 (in July – $87,000), while in January-July 2024 they amounted to $120,000.
Pure metallic zinc is used to recover precious metals, protect steel from corrosion, and for other purposes.
Experts from member companies of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (the Chamber) urge the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the Parliament) to promptly consider and adopt the relevant amendment to the Law of Ukraine “On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025,” as reflected in the draft Law of July 14, 2025, No. 13439-3, “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ”On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025“ regarding financial support for the security and defense sector and addressing priority issues” (draft Law). The amendment provides for the allocation and provision of additional state support to ensure the uninterrupted operation of rail transport.
In the opinion of the Chamber’s member companies, such a decision is extremely important today for the railway industry and related industries (agricultural, metallurgical, energy, construction, and others), as it will enable additional financial resources to be attracted to ensure the stable operation of rail transport in conditions of significant funding shortages, as well as prevent the suspension of the operational activities of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia, the deterioration of service quality, and the disruption of logistics chains.
Experts from the Chamber’s member companies welcome the approval of the draft law by the relevant Verkhovna Rada Committee on Budgetary Issues for further consideration in the second reading and hope for a prompt resolution of this issue during the current plenary week. After all, in the context of a full-scale war, ensuring the uninterrupted operation of rail transport is of strategic importance, playing a key role in the transportation of goods, ensuring the mobility of the population, and supporting the country’s economic activity.
