The following is the Feb. 4, 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.
President Donald Trump came out on Feb. 3 saying he wanted to make a deal with Ukraine by giving the war-torn country weapons and aid in return for its “rare earths and other things.”
"We're looking to do a deal with Ukraine, where they're going to secure what we're giving them with their rare earths and other things," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
"I want to have security of rare earths. We're putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earths. And I want security of the rare earths, and they're willing to do it," he said.
It’s not quite clear what exactly Trump meant by “rare earths and other things.” Ukraine is home to all sorts of highly sought-after raw materials from critical minerals to rare earth elements.
What’s more clear is why Trump wants them. China controls 70% of global rare earth mining capacity and 90% of processing capacity. Having easy access to these materials could boost the U.S.’s competitiveness — something at the top of the new president’s “America First” agenda.
For Kyiv’s part, President Volodymyr Zelensky has positioned Ukraine’s natural materials as part of a peace plan. Reports late last year said Zelensky’s team had even delayed a deal on critical materials with former President Joe Biden’s team so it could offer it to Trump in case he won the elections.
So what critical resources does Ukraine actually have and how viable are they, really? Ukraine has 20 of the world’s critical minerals and metals like titanium used in the aerospace and defense industries and lithium, an essential component of electric vehicle batteries.
Ukraine also possesses rare earth elements — under which titanium and lithium do not fall — such as cerium, yttrium, lanthanum, and neodymium. Demand for these materials has jumped in recent years as the world shifts to renewable forms of energy. Rare earth elements are crucial for making the powerful magnets used in wind turbine generators.
The issue, however, is geography. Raw materials are unevenly distributed across Ukraine and around $12 trillion has ended up in Russian-occupied territory, according to SecDev, a global digital risk and resilience firm.
And there’s the fact that a lot of these mineral deposits are underdeveloped, with the total value unknown, according to an analysis from the Kyiv School of Economics. Existing estimates put the value of Ukraine's critical minerals anywhere between $3-$26 trillion.
Read reporter Dominic Culverwell’s full article here.
Making millions off stolen Ukrainian resources
Speaking of critical resources. Oleksandr Yanukovych, the son of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, has made billions selling coal from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories to Turkey, independent Russian investigative outlet Important Stories reported on Feb. 4.
Viktor Yanukovych was Ukraine's pro-Kremlin president from 2010 to 2014 before fleeing to Russia with his family in the wake of the EuroMaidan Revolution. In October 2024, reports emerged that Oleksandr Yanukovych had been granted Russian citizenship.
The company behind the coal exports, Energoresurs, is registered in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and has exported nearly half a million tons of coal abroad between 2023 and 2024. Journalists linked Energoresurs to Oleksandr Yanukovych through his coal holdings and mining enterprises.
According to the investigation, the firm sources coal from suppliers in occupied Donbas and transports it to Turkey by rail and sea.
The coal is reportedly sold to an offshore company, Energy Union, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Energoresurs sells the coal at a significantly low price — an average of $60 per ton in 2024 — allowing the company to minimize export duties before reselling it at a higher price on international markets.
Ukrainian drone maker attracts $1 million
Huless, a Ukrainian company developing tethered drone systems, secured over $1 million in private financing, loans, and a grant from Ukrainian Defense Tech cluster Brave1, the company said in a press release on Jan. 30.
Huless makes the Highline-T, a drone that can operate for up to four hours at heights up to 100 meters, even without GPS signals, the company says.
Unlike kamikaze or bomber drones that blow up Russian positions or vehicles, the Highline-T’s main function is to carry radio equipment that boosts the operational range of other drones and remote-controlled ground vehicles.
The tethered drone stays connected to the ground via a cable that provides constant power and data connection independent of interference from electronic warfare.
Huless plans to use the funding to expand its market presence and develop its tethered drone technology for military communications, the company said.
Front-line lifeline
One of the oddities of Russia’s war has been the parallel realities that coexist, almost seamlessly: on the one side are daily air raid sirens, Russian attacks, and casualties, on the other, people grabbing coffee, children going to school, businesses growing.
Nowhere are these two starkly divergent realities more clear than near the front lines.
Reporter Yelyzaveta Sekretarenko took a trip to the front-line town of Druzhkivka, located just 15 kilometers from the embattled city of Chasiv Yar to talk to the local entrepreneurs and businesses that remain despite the dangers.
In one scene in Sekretarenko’s article, taxi driver Serhiy Pohrebnyakov sits calmly behind the wheel of his car waiting for customers as explosions go off and people around begin running in different directions for cover.
Beyond the services or goods they provide — taxi rides, baked bread, and shampoo and razors for soldiers at roadside kiosks — these small businesses contribute to a semblance of normalcy in their community amid all the devastation wrought by Russia.
Read the full article here.
What else is happening
Ukraine’s inflation expected to peak by mid-2025, cool by year-end
Ukraine’s inflation rate is set to peak at 15% by mid-2025 before dropping to 8.4% by year's end, Ukraine’s Central Bank said on Jan. 31. Poor harvests and higher wages amid labor shortages are currently driving the rising inflation, according to the bank. Inflation in Ukraine accelerated to 12% year-on-year in December 2024, surpassing the bank’s earlier projections. After peaking in the middle of the year and cooling to 8.4% by year’s end, the bank expects inflation to reach a target 5% in 2025.
Ukraine’s parcel delivery giant Nova Poshta invests $43 million to expand network in 2024
Ukraine's largest private delivery company Nova Poshta invested Hr 1.8 billion ($43 million) to expand its Ukrainian network in 2024, a 35% increase from 2023, the company said on social media. The company opened 1,747 new branches across Ukraine and installed 8,410 self-service delivery package lockers in 2024, bringing the total number of its service points across the country to 37,210.
Nearly 100 companies in Ukraine quietly change Russian ownership in 6 months, monitoring service reports
Within the last six months, 93 companies in Ukraine have removed signs of Russian ownership and continue to do business in the country, despite a moratorium on altering the registration of companies with Russian owners, the monitoring service Opendatabot reported. The monitoring service also found that some of these companies have participated in the Ukrainian public procurement tenders.
Ukraine announces privatization auction of country’s largest electromagnetic switch manufacturer
Ukraine’s State Property Fund announced an auction to privatize the state-owned Radiorele plant in Kharkiv — the country’s largest switching equipment manufacturer, the fund said on Feb. 3. Radiorele produces low-current, miniature, electromagnetic switches, and relays, which are used to control voltage, current, and temperature in electrical systems. The plant has been put up for auction in the past but has so far been unable to attract a buyer. The auction, which is for a 100% stake in the plant, will be held on Feb. 4. Its starting price is Hr 234.4 million ($5.6 million), which includes debts for the last six months.
Ukrainian bakery chain Lviv Croissants opens first French location in Cannes
Ukrainian cafe chain Lviv Croissants opened its first restaurant in Cannes, France, making it the fifth country outside of Ukraine where it now operates, the company said in a press release on Feb. 3. Lviv Croissants said it chose Cannes as its first French location “because of the impressive tourist flow and high prospects for the gastronomic business.”
