Eduard Burash, Transcarpathia’s Ambassador to Slovakia, has become an advisor to Anatoliy Kinakh, President of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (USPP), on issues of trade, economic, and investment cooperation between Ukraine and the Slovak Republic, Eduard Burash himself told Open4Business.
Burash is actively involved in organizing humanitarian aid for the Zakarpattia region and other regions of Ukraine.
In his new capacity as advisor to the USPP president, Burash has already participated in a meeting of the Council on the Reconstruction of Ukraine, which operates as part of the global organization of world leaders Lives Amplified. The meeting took place at the I.F. Kuras Institute of Political and Ethno-National Studies.
Eduard Burash has been involved in the development of Ukrainian-Slovak cooperation for many years. He is the ambassador of Zakarpattia to Slovakia; previously, he served as an advisor to the Prime Minister of Slovakia on cross-border cooperation with Ukraine, an advisor to the Slovak Ombudsman on child protection, and the authorized representative of the city of Košice for the development of cross-border cooperation with Uzhhorod and Zakarpattia Oblast. Burash also heads the FEMAN association and has been a long-time organizer of the Days of Ukraine in Košice. In addition, for over 10 years he has been the organizer of the Days of Ukraine in
Košice, which have featured meetings, conferences, and events involving Ukrainian and Slovak entrepreneurs.
The Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs is a nationwide public organization that brings together representatives of business, industry, entrepreneurial structures, and employers. The organization is headed by former Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoliy Kinakh.
ADVISOR, AMBASSADOR, PRESIDENT, SLOVAKIA, Transcarpathia, UUIE, Едуард Бураш
Slovakia has reopened border crossings with Ukraine that had previously been closed due to a massive airstrike on border regions, DennikN reports.
“Border crossings with Ukraine are open again in both directions; according to police, the situation remains calm for now,” the report states.
Border processing resumed at 5:47 p.m. Kyiv time. According to police, the crossings had been temporarily closed on the Ukrainian side.
As previously reported, the Slovak side closed all border checkpoints on the border with Ukraine on Wednesday, according to Slovakia’s Financial Administration.
On Wednesday, the Slovak authorities closed all border checkpoints on the border with Ukraine, according to the Slovak Financial Administration.
“For security reasons, all checkpoints on the border with Ukraine are closed starting today at 3:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. Kyiv time) until further notice,” the statement said.
The number of foreigners with a valid residence permit in Slovakia as of June 30, 2025, was 342,048, which is 14,676 more than a year earlier (+4.5%).
According to data from the Border and Foreign Police Department (UHCP) of the Slovak Ministry of the Interior, 287,014 of this number were third-country nationals and 55,034 were EU citizens.
Ukrainian citizens remain the largest group of foreigners in the country, with 201,116 people (about 59% of the total number of foreigners with valid residence permits).
The largest diasporas also include citizens of Serbia (16,240), the Czech Republic (12,441), Vietnam (11,179), Hungary (9,759), Russia (8,850), Romania (6,411), Poland (5,994), India (5,732), and Georgia (4,676).
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has announced his intention to stop emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine if Ukraine does not resume oil supplies on Monday, February 23, which were interrupted after an accident on the Druzhba oil pipeline near the Ukrainian city of Brody in the Lviv region in January.
“If the Ukrainian president does not resume oil supplies to Slovakia on Monday, then on the same day I will ask the relevant Slovak companies to stop emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine,” Fico wrote on Twitter.
He also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of allegedly “refusing to understand our peacemaking approach” and therefore, according to Fico, “behaving maliciously towards Slovakia,” which he believes treats Slovakia “as an enemy country.”
“First, he stopped gas supplies to Slovakia, causing us losses of €500 million a year. Now he has stopped oil supplies, causing us further losses and logistical difficulties. If the West does not object to the Nord Stream gas pipeline being blown up, Slovakia cannot view Slovak-Ukrainian relations as a one-way ticket that is only beneficial to Ukraine,” the Slovak prime minister wrote.
Fico added that he is a “proud and sovereign Slovak” and intends to ask the state-owned joint-stock company SEPS to stop emergency electricity supplies to Ukraine. “In January 2026 alone, these emergency supplies, necessary to stabilize the Ukrainian power grid, were twice as much as in the whole of 2025,” he said.
The head of the Slovak government also stressed that Slovakia has been helping Ukraine since the beginning of the war. “About 180,000 Ukrainians are currently on our territory, we are providing humanitarian aid and organizing joint government meetings. We are doing much more for Ukraine than some other countries,” Fico wrote.
As reported, on February 18, the export of diesel fuel from Hungary to Ukraine was suspended until the resumption of Russian crude oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline, said Hungarian State Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Relations Zoltán Kovács. In his opinion, Ukraine “unilaterally stopped supplies on January 27 for purely political reasons, although technically their resumption is possible.” Statements about the suspension of diesel exports to Ukraine also came from the Slovak side.
Earlier, Hungary and Slovakia asked Croatia to allow Russian oil to be supplied to Hungary and Slovakia via the Adria pipeline. Meanwhile, Slovakia has declared a state of emergency in the oil industry due to the lack of oil supplies.
Croatian Economy Minister Ante Šušnjar, in turn, said that the Adria pipeline is ready for operation, but that there are no technical justifications for any EU country to remain tied to Russian crude oil. “A barrel bought from Russia may seem cheaper for some countries, but it helps finance the war and attacks on the Ukrainian people,” he said.
The transport of Russian crude oil through Ukraine via the Druzhba pipeline has been halted since the end of last month due to large-scale Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
In January of this year, Ukraine reduced exports of manganese ore by 2.9% compared to the previous month, from 4,689 thousand tons to 4,553 thousand tons.
According to statistics released by the State Customs Service (SCS) on Tuesday, in monetary terms, exports remained at the December 2025 level of $756 thousand.
At the same time, exports in January were carried out to Slovakia (100% of supplies in monetary terms).
Ukraine did not import manganese ore in January 2026.
The SCS did not publish data on manganese ore exports and imports for January 2025.
As reported, Ukraine reduced manganese ore exports by 50.4% in 2025 compared to the same period last year, to 22,281 thousand tons, but increased shipments in August-December. While deliveries in the first seven months of 2025 amounted to 2,977 thousand tons, exports more than doubled in August, when 5,037 thousand tons were exported, in September they amounted to 1,725 thousand tons, in October – 3,993 thousand tons, 3,860 thousand tons in November, and 4,689 thousand tons in December.
In monetary terms, exports for the whole of 2025 fell by 45.2% compared to 2024, to $3.599 million. At the same time, the main exports were to Slovakia (99.22% of supplies in monetary terms) and Poland (0.78%). During this period, the country imported 37,006 thousand tons from Ghana worth $5.546 million, with all deliveries taking place in November. In 2024, 84,293 thousand tons of ore worth $18.302 million were imported.
In 2024, Ukraine exported 44,903 tons of manganese ore worth $6.563 million to the United States in January, breaking a two-year absence of supplies to foreign markets. In February-December 2024, there were no exports of manganese ore. At the same time, for the whole of 2024, the country imported 84,293 tons worth $18.302 million from Ghana (98.85%), Brazil (0.99%), and Belgium (0.11%). There were no imports in October-November.
Ukraine did not export manganese ore in 2022 and 2023, and in 2021, it exported 770 tons worth $89 thousand.
In addition, it was reported that the Pokrovsky Mining and Processing Plant (PGZK, formerly Ordzhonikidze Mining and Processing Plant) and the Marganetsky Mining and Processing Plant (MGZK, both in Dnipropetrovsk region), which are part of the Privat Group, stopped mining and processing raw manganese ore in late October-early November 2023, while NZF and ZZF stopped smelting ferroalloys. In the summer of 2024, ferroalloy plants resumed production.
PGZ and MGZ did not produce any products in 2024, while in 2023, PGZ produced 160.31 thousand tons of manganese concentrate, and MGZ was idle.
In 2025, PGZK produced 63.9 thousand tons of manganese concentrate worth UAH 342.138 million and sold 25.4 thousand tons worth UAH 216.309 million. In 2026, the plant plans to increase manganese concentrate production by 3.44 times compared to the previous year, to 220 thousand tons.
In Ukraine, manganese ore is mined and enriched by the Pokrovsky and Marganetsky mining and enrichment plants.
The consumers of manganese ore are ferroalloy enterprises.
