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Liliane Bivings

Business Editor

Liliane is the business editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked at the Kyiv Post as a staff writer covering business news and then as business editor. Liliane holds a master’s degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian affairs with a focus on Ukrainian studies at Columbia University. From 2017-2020 she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, after which she interned with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Liliane is the author of the Ukraine Business Roundup newsletter, which is sent out every Tuesday.

l.bivings@kyivindependent.com

Articles

Business

This investment fund is betting on Ukraine's struggling farm sector

by Liliane Bivings
Get more news like this directly to your inbox every week by subscribing to our Ukraine Business Roundup newsletter. Russia's full-scale invasion has hit Ukraine's agriculture sector in every conceivable way — from blocked ports and occupied farmland to grain theft, trade disruptions, and direct attacks. But even as the sector struggles, Ukraine has become more dependent on it than ever before. With exports of metals, mining, and other key industries shrinking due to the war, agriculture and a
Ukraine mergers and acquisitions activity, 2013-2025.
Business

Chart of the week: Ukraine’s deal market holds steady despite investor hesitation

by Liliane Bivings
Get more news like this directly to your inbox every week by subscribing to our Ukraine Business Roundup newsletter. Ukraine’s merger & acquisition market has remained active despite international investor caution, with 45 deals worth a disclosed $806 million in the first nine months of 2025, a new report from accounting firm KPMG Ukraine said. The total is an 8% increase in value from last year. Domestic investors drove most of the activity, accounting for 73% of transactions and $442 million
Ukraine

Zelensky's big blunder, explained

by Liliane Bivings, Kateryna Denisova
For many who came to know Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky only after Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, the president's recent move on anti-graft agencies was jarring. In the early days of the invasion, Zelensky gained hero status after refusing to evacuate as Russian forces closed in on Kyiv. His daily addresses and global appeals rallied Western support and helped secure the military and financial aid that have kept Ukraine afloat. To much of the world, Zelensky became the
Business

Exclusive: Ukraine pitches US modernizing its largest oil refinery as part of minerals deal

by Liliane Bivings
Projects Kyiv has submitted to the U.S. for consideration as part of a profit-sharing deal for Ukraine's resources include a shelf and deepwater project and an oil refinery that comes under frequent attack by Russia, Ukraine's Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told the Kyiv Independent in an interview published on July 7. After months of hard-fought negotiations around the investment agreement — known more widely as the "minerals deal" for its focus on Ukraine's critical minerals — the two sid
Business

‘Neither side wasted time' — Ukraine's economy minister on minerals deal negotiations with Trump’s ‘business-oriented’ administration

by Liliane Bivings, Olga Rudenko
Ukraine's Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says her task is simple — to get the investment fund behind the closely watched minerals deal with the U.S. off the ground, and prove its detractors wrong. "There are so many criticisms from different parties that this fund is just a piece of paper we can put on the shelves — that it won't be operational," Svyrydenko, who is also Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, tells the Kyiv Independent at Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers on July 4, the morning
Business

In wartime Ukraine, a university grows — and reclaims a space once reserved for the corrupt

by Liliane Bivings
Once the playground of disgraced Ukrainian politicians, a golf club in Kyiv’s Soviet-era Obolon neighborhood is now set to become the new campus of the Kyiv School of Economics, which last month bought the site for $18 million as part of a $40 million investment — the largest private investment in education in Ukraine’s independent history. At the opening picnic on the grounds last Sunday, over 2,000 students, alumni, and locals gathered on a territory once reserved for political elites, includ
President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers a press conference in Paris, France, on March 27, 2025.
Business

‘Clearly, Ukraine is holding cards’ — political economist on why US pressure won’t force Kyiv to concede

by Liliane Bivings
If Ukraine’s military resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion stunned the world, its economic resilience in the face of a larger, better-equipped enemy is a lesser-known story of the war. A combination of rapid state expansion, prudent monetary policy, active civil society in Ukraine, and crucial external funding from foreign partners since 2022 have helped Kyiv avoid the kind of catastrophic state collapse a war can trigger. As a result, Ukraine is far from “doomed to defeat” — even if the
Ukraine Business Roundup

Ukraine Business Roundup — Making sense of the minerals deal

by Liliane Bivings
The following is the May 6, 2025 edition of our Ukraine Business Roundup weekly newsletter. To get the biggest news in business and tech from Ukraine directly in your inbox, subscribe here. As I’m sure you saw, the U.S. and Ukraine finally signed the minerals agreement after months and months of back and forth and tense negotiations. Most people are in agreement that this version of the deal is much fairer than earlier versions observers called “colonial” and “exploitative,” but that doens’t me
Ukraine Business Roundup

Ukraine Business Roundup — How Russia steals Ukrainian coal

by Liliane Bivings
The following is the April 29, 2025 edition of our Ukraine Business Roundup weekly newsletter. To get the biggest news in business and tech from Ukraine directly in your inbox, subscribe here. The following is an excerpt from our latest investigation by investigative reporter Alisa Yurchenko. On March 29, the sanctioned Russia-flagged vessel Sv. Nikolay quietly docked at the Algerian port of Anaba near the coal terminal, waiting to be unloaded. The metallurgical coke the ship was carrying — a

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