ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog Mining and Metallurgical Combine PJSC (AMKR, Dnepropetrovsk region) has announced the forced termination of production activities of its subsidiary Foundry-Mechanical Plant LLC (LMZ).
According to the company’s press release on Friday, the decision to cease production activities of LMZ, which is an auxiliary division of AMKR’s main production facility, will take effect three months from the date of the announcement.
AMKR notes that the decision is dictated by the current economic and market circumstances in which the company is operating in Ukraine amid a full-scale war. AMKR. A key reason for the move is the high cost of electricity in Ukraine. Constant attacks on the energy infrastructure have led to electricity shortages and the need to import electricity at even higher prices, which has led to a significant increase in production costs and a drop in production. For example, due to the shortage of e/e in January 2026 compared to November 2025 figures, there was a 30% drop in pig iron production, a 40% drop in steel production and a drop in rolled steel production by up to 60%.
“Compared to 2024, when we asked the Ukrainian government to urgently develop measures to curb the growth of electricity prices and support producers in the mining and metallurgical industries, the price of electricity rose from $120 per MWh (in Q2 2024 with delivery without VAT) to $230 in February 2026, reaching up to $370 per MWh during peak hours,” the press release states.
An additional negative factor was the decision of the European Commission to introduce CBAM (cross-border carbon adjustment mechanism) from January 1, 2026 without any exemptions and transition period for Ukrainian producers. This resulted in the loss of the European market for a significant part of Ukrainian steel producers and critically affected their production volumes and utilization of certain divisions and capacities.
“It is worth noting that AMKR made significant efforts to reorient sales to the EU market after the outbreak of a full-scale war. However, the implementation of CBAM without taking into account the realities of the war in Ukraine thwarted these efforts,” the press release explains.
The company notes that the decision to close LMZ will result in the reduction of 1.7 thousand jobs, and together with the closure of the blooming shop and related production processes, the number of job cuts will exceed 2,400. At the same time, LMZ employees will be offered jobs at AMKR with the possibility of retraining at the employer’s expense.
Foundry-Mechanical Plant LLC (LMZ) is one of the largest machine-building enterprises in Ukraine. The enterprise is a powerful machine-building and repair-mechanical complex, which includes a number of machine-building chains and such production branches as foundry, forging and pressing, thermal, welding and surfacing production, mechanical processing, metalworking and assembly, production of rubber and technical products, repair of mechanical products and others.
Ukrainians are currently receiving temporary protection in the European Union regardless of gender and age, and this arrangement has been extended until March 27, 2027, said European Commission spokesman Markus Lammert, commenting on discussions in member states about granting protection to Ukrainian men of conscription age.
“As far as I remember the rules for granting temporary protection, they make no distinction between women, children, and men of conscription age,” Lammert said at a briefing in Brussels on Friday.
When asked whether the EU should accept Ukrainian men of conscription age during the war in Ukraine and whether there is indeed a discussion at the European level about their temporary protection, given that the issue has been raised by the Luxembourg government and the Ukrainian authorities, the European Commission representative replied: “I am not aware of any discussion in Luxembourg. I can say that temporary protection is what we have decided at the EU level and at the level of member states until March 27 next year. The current rules remain in force, and that is all I can say at this point.”
National postal operator Ukrposhta has started auctions for the sale of 20 unused real estate objects with a total area of 32.8 thousand square meters with a starting price of more than UAH 200 million, the company’s CEO Igor Smilyansky said on Thursday.
According to his message in Telegram, the objects offered on the site Prozorro.Sale range from a small room in a village in Transcarpathia to a sorting center in Lviv with an area of 5.6 thousand square meters.
The head of the company expects profits from the sale in the tens of millions of hryvnias, which will be used for investments, as well as savings on the maintenance of these facilities and payment of taxes of more than 3 million hryvnias.
“The funds to be received from the sale, according to the decision of the shareholder ”Ukrposhta” Ministry of Development of Communities and Territories, will be immediately directed to investments in fixed assets,” Smilyansky said.
General Director of “Ukrposhta” specified that the starting price for investors, put up for auction sorting center, which was built in the 1920s in the heart of Lviv near the railway station, 56.9 million UAH.
The day before, Ukrposhta also completed the second auction of 716 units of decommissioned vehicles on Prozorro.Sales, receiving UAH 9 million, and is preparing to start the final sale of about 250 more cars.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Ukrposhta made a net profit of UAH 257.9 million, which was 69.2% higher than in the same period of 2024 due to additional income from the sale of the company’s property, which amounted to UAH 168 million.
The national postal operator increased its revenue by UAH 10.7m in the fourth quarter compared to the corresponding period of 2024 – up to UAH 3bn 601.6m.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is planning to approve a new procedure for using state support funds for industrial parks in the next week or two with an additional program for receiving monetary compensation for infrastructure damaged by Russian attacks in the amount of up to UAH 200 million, Deputy Minister of Economy Vitaliy Kindrativ said.
“In the near future, we will come up with a new procedure for the use of funds, which will include an additional program for receiving compensation for damaged infrastructure in industrial parks. That is, if there was a Russian attack, something was lost or destroyed, the state will be able to give you up to UAH 200 million to restore the infrastructure. I think it will be adopted by the government in a week or two, and we will soon receive applications,” he said during the annual Eco-Industrial Parks Conference in Kyiv on Friday.
He expressed hope that there will be few applications for restoration, but reminded that there are already “two bad cases, and it is on them that we have developed this mechanism of support from the state for those who suffered.”
Mr. Kindrativ also noted that the incentives provided by the state for the development of industrial parks are enough to develop a network of them.
“For our part, we see one big gap that we have been working on for two years now, and we hope to achieve results – a program to support and develop the capacity of IPs, management companies, and participants. That is, it is not enough to create and register an IP, it is necessary to fill it with appropriate meanings and tools, to bring in residents and give it life, and this requires additional competence and those who create the park do not always have it,” said the Deputy Minister of Economy.
According to him, launching this program this year is one of the government’s priorities.
Mr. Kindrativ also reminded that Ukraine is probably the only country in the world that has developed and approved the standard of an eco-industrial park at the state level.
“And it seems to me that for businesses that are planning and looking towards industrial parks, this is a good beacon of what they should do to develop in this direction,” he summarized.
As reported, as of the end of 2025, 37 industrial enterprises were built or under construction in Ukrainian industrial parks, of which 22 plants have already been built and 15 are under construction.
Currently, the Register of Industrial Parks includes more than 113 objects. Industrial parks are part of the investment component of the Made in Ukraine policy for the development of Ukrainian producers.
In October 2025, for example, a Russian missile destroyed the Sparrow Industrial Park in Lviv.
The EIP Ukraine 2026 conference is being implemented as a flagship national event within the framework of the Global Eco-Industrial Parks Program II – Ukraine: National Implementation (GEIPP-II Ukraine) project.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/economic/1147910.html
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has donated three high-power autotransformers worth more than $20 million to Ukrenergo NEC as part of the “Emergency Recovery and Reconstruction Project,” the system operator said on Friday.
“It is not the first time we receive donor assistance with scarce and expensive high-voltage equipment from our Japanese partners. Given the consequences of Russia’s massive attacks, the powerful autotransformers delivered at the end of last year are extremely necessary for the Ukrainian energy system,” said Vitaliy Zaichenko, chairman of the board of NEC Ukrenergo.
For his part, Osamu Hattori, Head of the JICA office in Ukraine, expressed his respect for the Ukrenergo team for its technical excellence.
“We deeply admire the resilience and technical excellence of the Ukrenergo team. JICA is committed to continue helping to improve the reliability, security and long-term sustainability of Ukraine’s energy system,” he emphasized.
As Ukrenergo explained, the logistics of cargoes of such type as the above-mentioned autotransformers is a very complicated process due, first of all, to the dimensions of the cargo. The weight of each of the three transformers is almost 200 tons, with a height of 4.5 meters and a width of almost 4 meters.
“Taking into account the dimensions of the transportation platform and the weight of the tractor itself, the route is laid out in such a way as to bypass many bridges, over which or under which it is impossible to pass,” the NEC said.
Numbeo has published its Quality of Life Index for 2026, ranking the quality of life in 89 countries and 304 cities across the world based on a combination of factors including purchasing power, pollution levels, house price to income ratio, cost of living, safety, healthcare quality, travel time to work and climate.
According to the ranking, the top 5 countries for quality of life were the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Oman and Switzerland, while the top 10 also included Finland, Austria, Germany, Iceland and Norway.
The Netherlands is also leading in the ranking of cities – the first places were taken by The Hague, Utrecht and Eindhoven, followed by Groningen and Rotterdam; the top ten also included Luxembourg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Ghent and Nuremberg.
Ukraine, as noted in the publication, is located in 68th place directly above Russia.
