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Japan breaks into Ukraine’s drone market for first time as Tokyo confronts regional threats
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Japan breaks into Ukraine’s drone market for first time as Tokyo confronts regional threats

by Dominic Culverwell

A Tokyo-listed drone firm is breaking with the trend of Japanese companies avoiding Ukraine's defense industry by partnering with interceptor drone producer Amazing Drones, the first Japanese company to invest in the sector. The investment — undisclosed in size — will fuel a major production scale-up at Kharkiv-based Amazing Drones, with Terra Drone using its decade-long experience to handle supply chains, marketing, and global expansion, the company said at a launch event in Kyiv on March 31.

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Budgetary Permacrisis: Ukraine's fiscal challenges in 2026

Ukraine started 2026 with a sigh of relief. Positive news on debt restructuring, IMF aid disbursement, bumper foreign exchange reserves, and most importantly, a last-minute compromise €90 bn loan from the EU, suggested that Kyiv would have a moment to catch its breath. Three months on, and this optimism is firmly in the rearview mirror. Hungarian and Slovakian obstruction has derailed progress on loan disbursement, reforms needed for unlocking critical multilateral institution financing remain

Exclusive: We discovered what's going on inside Russia's shadow fleet

The vessels are old, their hulls streaked with rust, and their ownership obscured behind layers of shell companies. Yet the tankers that make up Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, the armada used to move sanctioned oil across the globe, are kept running with modern Western technology including Starlink, an investigation by the Kyiv Independent can reveal. To gain an insight into how the shadow fleet operates, the Kyiv Independent spoke to two Ukrainian sailors who claim they unwittingly became p

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The Kyiv Independent’s Business Desk covers the biggest news in business, economics, and tech from Ukraine, as well as global developments that shape the economy of the region.

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