In Ukraine, the area under potatoes in the 2025 season increased by 25% compared to last year, and thanks to favorable weather conditions, the yield was also a quarter higher, so it can be assumed that the harvest of Ukrainians’ second bread is 50% higher than last year, said Mykola Furdyga, director of the Potato Institute.
“It is very easy to calculate how much potatoes we produce. If the average farm price is 8 UAH/kg, and last year it was 20 UAH/kg, then I think we have 50% more production: production areas have expanded by 25% and the harvest has increased by 25% thanks to weather conditions,“ he said at the conference ”The state of development of the potato industry and the potential of processing enterprises in Volyn.”
Furdyga noted that Ukraine does not need such a volume of grown potatoes even in the case of deep processing (into chips and starch – IF-U).
Commenting on Ukraine’s import of more than 123,000 tons of potatoes in the 2024-2025 marketing year, the scientist explained that this record volume of sales abroad was caused by the unusual weather conditions of 2024 (Ukraine experienced a “record” drought – IF-U). Therefore, the state was forced to import potatoes to meet domestic food needs. European countries willingly supplied Ukraine with products due to their attractive price. At the same time, potatoes from Egypt did not dominate the market, but occupied their traditional niche in the off-season (February-March – IF-U), he noted.
In addition, Ukraine traditionally imports seed potatoes from leading breeding companies in the European Union, the director of the Potato Institute recalled.
Furdyga stated that since the beginning of the war, there has been a trend in Ukraine toward a reduction in potato cultivation in households and an expansion of production areas for this crop in farms and even in agricultural holdings. He explained this trend by the departure of the population from villages abroad and mobilization.
“For example, in Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, there are villages where households used to plant 30 hectares of potatoes, and now if they plant 2 hectares, that’s still good,” he said, adding that potato cultivation is becoming unprofitable and labor-intensive for households.
Furdyga estimated the share of domestic potato varieties in national production at around 10-12%, given that they are mainly grown by small producers and households.
“Of course, we would like to have a larger market share, but this is the situation at the moment. I can only boast that in the 2025 season, domestic varieties were grown by the farms of Biotech Ltd. and Brovary Kartoplya Ltd. in the Kyiv region and STOV Desna in the Chernihiv region. In total, they propagated domestic varieties for further sale on an area of about 300 hectares,” said the director of the Potato Institute.
As reported, in 2024, due to unfavorable weather conditions and, in particular, drought, Ukraine’s potato harvest was 18% lower, i.e., by 4 million tons, to approximately 17.36 million tons, compared to 21.36 million tons in 2023.
In Germany, about one million people who have been rejected for asylum remain in the country, the Epoch Times reported. In most cases, these people are living in Germany illegally, waiting for appeals to be decided or facing deportation difficulties. The country’s authorities recognize the problem and are actively seeking ways to address it, but the deportation process is hampered by political, legal and humanitarian aspects.
The denial of asylum affects several categories of migrants. Among them are:
1) economic migrants – people who are seeking better living conditions but have no grounds for asylum by international standards,
2) non-status migrants – those who have no legal basis for staying in Germany, including tourists and people with expired visas,
3) refused status reviewers – migrants whose applications have been rejected but who continue to stay in the country by filing new appeals.
4) Refused deportees – people who have been denied asylum but are evading deportation, often using legal loopholes or for humanitarian reasons.
These are mainly citizens of Afghanistan, Turkey and Kosovo who are often denied asylum because they do not meet the criteria for refugee status. These countries are seen as safe, with low levels of violence or political persecution.
Also included in the refusals are people who have not proven to belong to vulnerable categories such as refugees from violence, persecution or war.
The issue is hotly debated in German society, and the authorities are taking steps to improve migration policy, including efforts to speed up deportation processes and reform the asylum system. However, political and humanitarian considerations continue to be major obstacles to an effective resolution.
According to Eurostat data on material deprivation in the “Housing in Europe – 2025 edition” review, around 9% of the European Union population in 2024 could not afford to heat their homes adequately.
The EU’s statistical office notes that the problem of energy poverty and high utility costs remains significant for millions of households, despite the support measures taken after the 2022–2023 energy crisis.
Low-income households and residents of old, energy-inefficient housing in a number of Eastern and Southern European countries remain particularly vulnerable.
According to the Serbian Economist, Serbia has not received a special license from the U.S. OFAC to continue the work of the company NIS, which has fallen under U.S. sanctions. This was announced by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. He also said that Serbia has decided to completely shut down the Pančevo refinery.
Since November 25, the NIS refinery has been operating in a reduced circulation mode due to a shortage of oil. Vucic noted that NIS will decide when to complete the shutdown of the refinery.
Earlier it was reported that the Serbian parliament is preparing an amendment that would allow Serbia to become the owner of NIS. A possible sale of 56.15% of NIS shares to Hungarian partners is also being considered.
NIS, a subsidiary of Gazprom Neft, was included in the US SDN List in 2025.
https://t.me/relocationrs/1865
J&Y LLC (Zaporizhzhia), which is engaged in restoring communications in affected and de-occupied territories, invested 67.04 million in the first half of 2025 in the purchase of components for the mobile network core, according to a report by the National Commission for the Regulation of Electronic Communications and Postal Services (NCRC) on its website.
According to the regulator, in the first half of 2024, the company invested UAH 25.1 million in telecommunications, but at that time, the report did not provide additional details on how the funds would be used.
On its official website, J&Y stated that it is implementing 3G and 4G technologies to restore communications in de-occupied territories. The company announced the restoration of more than 10,000 km of networks in de-occupied territories and the provision of communications to more than 1 million people.
In addition, according to its information, more than 700 base stations have been modernized to support 4G communications, and the construction of more than 2,350 base stations is planned.
The website also states that the company is the official distributor of MikroTik/RouterBOARD products in Ukraine.
The Work.ua job portal states that the company has vacancies for an electrical communications engineer and a fiber optic cable installer in Zaporizhia, and for an occupational safety engineer, recruiter, and procurement specialist in Kyiv, with salaries ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 hryvnia. According to information from the regulator, in January-June of this year, the company employed an average of 64 people in the telecommunications sector.
According to the NCC, in the first half of this year, J& Y received UAH 2.39 million in revenue from the provision of telecommunications services, of which UAH 2.26 million came from services using communication lines with a speed of at least 2 Mbit/s, amounting to UAH 2.26 million. By the middle of the year, it had 1,200 lines (points) of fixed access to the Internet.
According to YouControl, the founders of J&Y are Alina Gorbunova with a 36% stake and Irina Srebrodolska and Valery Edelev with 32% stakes each. At the end of last year, the company’s unfinished capital investments amounted to UAH 237.8 million, while net income from the sale of services last year amounted to UAH 5.6 million.
According to the NCC, as of the middle of the first half of this year, there were three major operators providing 3G and 4G communication services in Ukraine: Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, and lifecell, with revenues of UAH 12.17 billion, UAH 9.55 billion, and UAH 4.52 billion, respectively.
In addition, TriMob LLC reported small revenues from the provision of 3G and 4G services – UAH 4 million, and Laikamobile Ukraine – UAH 1.5 million, while at International Telecommunications LLC and Telesystems of Ukraine PJSC, they amounted to less than UAH 10,000.
On December 2, PJSC Ukrnafta announced a tender for insurance services covering the liability of dangerous goods transporters in the event of negative consequences during the transportation of such goods.
According to the Prozorro electronic public procurement system, the expected cost of purchasing the services is UAH 471,691 thousand.
Documents will be accepted until December 10.
Ukrnafta JSC is Ukraine’s largest oil production company and operates the largest national network of gas stations, UKRNAFTA. In 2024, the company entered into asset management with Glusco. In 2025, it completed an agreement with Shell Overseas Investments BV to purchase the Shell network in Ukraine. In total, it operates 663 gas stations.
The company is implementing a comprehensive program to restore operations and update the format of gas stations in its network. Since February 2023, it has been issuing its own fuel vouchers and NAFTAKarta cards, which are sold to legal entities and individuals through Ukrnafta-Postach LLC.
The largest shareholder of Ukrnafta 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 the company’s corporate rights, which belonged to private owners, to the state, and they are now managed by the Ministry of Defense.
