Italy intends to sign an intergovernmental agreement with Ukraine for EUR 50 million to purchase Italian goods and services for recovery and allocate EUR 100 million to the ERA (Economic Resilience Action) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group to support the private sector, Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said.
“I would like to emphasize that all these initiatives will be financed from new grant resources, with the clear intention of not placing an additional burden on Ukraine’s state budget,” he said at the URC2025 Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, according to a correspondent from the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
The minister also announced an additional contribution of EUR 10 million for the implementation of an EBRD project in the agro-industrial sector, which aims to modernize Ukraine’s agro-industrial sector while promoting its integration into global value chains.
In addition, Giorgetti stressed the importance of technical cooperation as a basis for effective and sustainable reconstruction and announced his intention to allocate EUR 1.5 million to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) initiative FIRST (Ukraine Facility for Infrastructure Reconstruction) to assist in the preparation of public investment projects for the reconstruction of infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing the VARUS Group retail chain with a $25 million loan to expand its retail operations and improve business sustainability, according to the EBRD press service.
This food security project, with a total value of $53.1 million, will receive a 22% first loss risk coverage provided by the EU under the Investment Facility for Ukraine (UIF) through the Municipal, Infrastructure and Industrial Resilience (MIIR) program. To date, the EU has allocated EUR 207 million in guarantees and grants to Ukraine through the EBRD under the Ukraine Investment Facility (UIF), 87% of which has been provided to the private sector.
The guarantee for Varus plays a crucial role in mitigating the heightened macroeconomic and geopolitical risks associated with the investment. The support is provided in recognition of the project’s alignment with the bank’s Green Economy Transition (GET) approach through energy-efficient modernization, the installation of renewable energy sources, and the improvement of sustainable logistics. It includes the installation of solar panels, high-efficiency lighting, and reversible split air conditioning systems with low global warming potential.
VARUS Group is the fifth largest food retail chain in Ukraine. The chain consists of 114 stores, most of which are located in the eastern part of the country, employing around 7,500 people. Despite the closure of some retail outlets due to the war, the group has opened new stores and been able to return to its pre-war size. The EBRD loan will enable further expansion of the VARUS network, the refurbishment and modernization of equipment in existing stores, the lease of a new warehouse, and the installation of photovoltaic systems to reduce dependence on the electricity grid.
Cooperation with the EBRD will help preserve Ukraine’s human capital and the livelihoods of workers despite the ongoing challenges of wartime through technical cooperation. The project will also benefit from a co-investment grant to optimize warehouse logistics, improve energy efficiency, and address urgent human capital needs.
Technical support is funded by the EBRD’s Multilateral Donor Fund “Action for Equality and Gender Equality” (A4EG), while project preparation and the co-investment grant are funded by the Japan-EBRD Cooperation Fund.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide two loans of EUR 50 million and EUR 70 million to state-owned Ukrgasbank (Kyiv) to finance energy independence projects for municipalities and support green growth of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as a new EU portfolio guarantee.
“Within the framework of the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Rome, UGB (Ukrgasbank) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced the signing of a multi-component financial package,” the bank said on Thursday.
It is noted that this will allow attracting additional financing for small and medium-sized businesses worth tens of millions of euros and has become one of the first significant results of the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2025 in Rome.
As part of the package, Ukrgasbank will allocate EUR 50 million to strengthen the energy independence of Ukrainian municipalities. The funds will be used to modernize the district heating infrastructure, develop decentralized heat generation, integrate renewable energy sources and improve energy efficiency of public buildings. The EU grant component will make this funding available to frontline communities.
Another EUR 70 million will be allocated to support the sustainability and green growth of small and medium-sized businesses. These funds will help businesses maintain operations, modernize and implement environmental solutions.
“This financing is further strengthened by a portfolio guarantee from the EU provided by the EIB, which will significantly increase Ukrgasbank’s ability to lend and raise critical capital for the private sector in the amount of more than EUR 31.25 million, even in wartime,” the bank added.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, in April 2025, Ukrgasbank ranked fifth in terms of total assets (UAH 220.0 billion or 5.9%) among 60 banks operating in the country.
As reported, the European Investment Bank Group and the European Commission announced a new EU financing package of EUR 600 million at the Ukraine Recovery Conference.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to hold a meeting of his team with representatives of the business community on Friday, June 27, to discuss pressing issues.
As it became known to the agency “Interfax-Ukraine”, the Union of Ukrainian Entrepreneurs (UEU), the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine (AmCham) are invited to the meeting, but the international business community Board is not invited.
“I, as the founder of the Board and as chairman of the Coalition of Business Communities for the Modernization of Ukraine, was not invited. In a strange way,” said Andriy Dligach, founder of Advanter Group and the Board community, in a comment to the agency.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest telecommunications operator, has announced the launch of its own cloud service for Ukrainian business users – Kyivstar Cloud.
“It is available to small, medium and large businesses, as well as public sector organizations,” the company said in a release on Tuesday.
According to Ilya Poltakov, Kyivstar’s director of new business development, the company sees a strong business demand for affordable solutions and believes that the new platform will enable customers to optimize IT infrastructure costs and scale their business quickly and securely.
According to the release, Kyivstar Cloud can be easily scaled. It has an affordable price, no traffic billing due to local placement, and supports hybrid and multi-cloud models: it can be combined with public and private clouds from different providers, such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
It is also noted that Kyivstar Cloud will provide an opportunity to independently create and administer a server, virtual machines, an environment for remote access to programs, host CRM, ERP and other systems, store company data, deploy or test software, etc.
According to the report, Kyivstar Cloud is built on Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) edge-to-cloud servers.
“In the future, Kyivstar Cloud can become not only a business service but also a part of nationwide solutions for e-government, medical systems, educational platforms and other digital infrastructure services,” the release says.
“As of March 2025, Kyivstar served about 22.7 million mobile subscribers and more than 1.1 million Home Internet subscribers. The company provides services using a wide range of mobile and fixed technologies, including 4G, Big Data, Cloud solutions, cybersecurity services, digital TV, etc. and has declared investments in new telecom technologies in 2023-2027 of $1 billion.
Kyivstar’s shareholder is the international VEON Group, whose shares are listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange (New York).
The relocation of businesses during the war has opened up opportunities for Ukrainian businesses to renew themselves and enter new markets. This was stated by CCIP President Gennady Chyzhykov in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
“We helped entrepreneurs relocate their production, advised them on regulatory conditions, and created channels for partnership. Support for SMEs, the most vulnerable sector, was particularly important,” he said.
Chizhikov added that in regions such as Volyn, programs have been implemented to integrate relocated businesses into the economy, including joint projects with the Czech Republic.
For more details, see the interview at https://interfax.com.ua/news/interview/1069297.html
