In 2025, 14,124 foreigners permanently residing in Finland obtained citizenship, which is a new record, according to preliminary data from the Tilastokeskus statistical service.
According to this data, the largest number of Finnish citizenships in 2025 were granted to citizens of Iraq (1,960), followed by citizens of the Russian Federation (1,491) and citizens of Syria (1,282).
Tilastokeskus provides figures for the top three countries in its publication, but does not disclose the number of Ukrainians who obtained citizenship or their place in the overall ranking. A more detailed breakdown by citizenship in the official statistics is usually published later as a separate data set.
According to Tilastokeskus, the largest group of arrivals in Finland in 2025 were citizens of Ukraine (8,388), followed by citizens of the Philippines (2,701) and Sri Lanka (2,435).
On Monday, February 16, at night in the western regions, moderate snow, in Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, moderate, in some places heavy snow; in most northern regions, heavy snow, blizzard; wet snow and rain in the rest of the country, with heavy precipitation mainly in the form of rain in the Sumy, Cherkasy, Poltava, and Kharkiv regions; light snow during the day, mainly rain in the east of the country, moderate precipitation in the northeast (no significant precipitation in the western, southern, and Vinnytsia regions).
According to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center, in the western, northern, and most central regions, there will be icy patches on the roads in some places.
The wind will be mainly northwesterly, 7-12 m/s, with gusts of 15-20 m/s in Ukraine, except in the west.
The temperature at night and during the day in the western, Zhytomyr, and Vinnytsia regions will be 7-12° below zero; in the Carpathian region and the north of the country, 4-9° below zero; in most central and Sumy regions, from 3° above zero to 2° below zero; in the east and southeast, 3-8° above zero.
In Kyiv, there will be heavy snow on Monday night and light snow in some places during the day. There will be ice on the roads in some places. The wind will be mainly northwesterly, 7-12 m/s, with gusts of 15-18 m/s, and blizzards at night and in the morning. The temperature at night and during the day will be 7-9° below zero.
According to data from the Boris Sreznevsky Central Geophysical Observatory, the highest daytime temperature in Kyiv on February 16 was 11.8°C in 1957, and the lowest nighttime temperature was -23.2°C in 1911.
On Tuesday, February 17, there will be no significant precipitation, with only light rain in Crimea during the day.
The wind will be northeast, 5-10 m/s.
In the western, northern, and most central regions, there will be icy patches on the roads in some places.
Temperature at night 8-13°, in the northern part 14-19°, during the day 4-9° below zero, in most central regions at night 3-8°, during the day 0-5° below zero, in Transcarpathia, the south and southeast of the country at night 1-6° below zero, and 0-3°C during the day.
In Kyiv on Tuesday, there will be no significant precipitation. There will be icy patches on the roads in some places. The wind will be north-easterly, 5-10 m/s. The temperature at night will be 15-17°, and during the day 7-9° below zero.
EU enlargement is a geopolitical decision, and changes need to be made to the process of accepting new members, but EU member states are not yet ready to name a specific date for Ukraine’s accession, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists, said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
“We really need to work on this. But I think I have the feeling that the member states are not ready to name a specific date,” she said in response to questions at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, according to a correspondent from the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
Kallas recalled that, in addition to Ukraine, Montenegro and Albania have also been on the list of candidates for accession for a long time.
“I think that the priority, the urgent need to move forward and show that Ukraine is part of Europe, exists,” the head of European diplomacy noted.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs also agreed with the EU’s unwillingness to set a date for Ukraine’s accession today.
“When I spoke with many heads of state and government of the European Union, I got the impression that at this stage, as we speak here in Munich in February, there is no readiness to set a date,” he said.
In his opinion, there is a desire to see Ukraine become part of the EU as soon as possible.
“The EU has always been very creative when it was really necessary. And we can find a formula that will probably suit us,” the Latvian president believes.
According to him, two other issues need to be resolved as part of this decision: the admission of candidate countries from the Western Balkans, which have long been promised this, and Moldova.
“When talking about Ukraine, don’t forget about Moldova. If Ukraine joins, we cannot exclude Moldova from this. So it’s not just about Ukraine anymore. We are talking about perhaps the largest unifying expansion, but probably under different rules,” Rinkēvičs explained.
In his opinion, it will then be necessary to return to a very serious discussion of what the entire structure of European Union decision-making will look like.
The Latvian president also stressed that the date of Ukraine’s possible accession to the EU, whether we like it or not, is now very much linked to a peace agreement with Russia — will there be a peace agreement or not?
“To be honest, I don’t see Russia being ready for an agreement. And if Russia doesn’t move, we won’t have an agreement,” he explained.
According to Rinkevics, Zelensky’s appeal to set a date for accession should be heard at a meeting of the European Council.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic have developed a panel of four biomarkers in blood plasma to detect pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The results are published in Clinical Cancer Research.
According to the NIH, in two retrospective sample sets, the addition of two new protein markers—aminopeptidase N (ANPEP) and polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (PIGR)—to the already studied CA19-9 and thrombospondin-2 (THBS2) allowed cancer cases to be distinguished from “non-cancer” cases in 91.9% of observations, with a false positive rate of 5%. For early stages (I-II), the test identified 87.5% of cases.
The report emphasizes that the panel was able to distinguish between malignant cases and patients with non-malignant pancreatic diseases, including pancreatitis, which is important for future use in risk groups.
The authors note that the results obtained require further verification in larger and “pre-diagnostic” studies – that is, in people before the onset of symptoms, primarily among patients at increased risk (family history, genetic predisposition, cysts, or pancreatitis).
The volume of exports of insulated wires and cables (including fiber optic cables) from Ukraine in January 2026 increased by 8.5% in monetary terms compared to the same month in 2025, reaching $113.2 million.
According to statistics from the State Customs Service, Germany was the largest importer of Ukrainian products, as it was last year, with shipments increasing by 8% to $39 million, while its share of total exports of these products remained almost unchanged at 34.5%.
As in January 2025, the top three importers also included Poland ($18.2 million, 16%) and Hungary ($17.7 million, 15.7%).
At the same time, imports of these products to Ukraine increased by 13.8% to $46.3 million last month.
The largest suppliers of wires and cables to Ukraine in January were China ($13.8 million or almost 30%), Hungary ($12.4 million or 26.7%), and Poland ($5.6 million or 12.2%), while last year imports from China amounted to $10.8 million, Hungary – $10.6 million, and Poland – $5.9 million.
According to the State Customs Service, in 2025 Ukraine increased exports of insulated wires and cables by 10.6% compared to 2024, to $1.41 billion, and imports by 24.3%, to $590.7 million.
