•The ongoing trade war with Russia has cost Ukraine over $1 billion, Deputy Minister Viktor Dovhan said on Hromadske Radio, multiple news sources reported. That's about 2 percent of GDP, he said, adding that deliveries of Ukrainian exports to other countries via Russia have also been blocked.

•Ukraine dropped one spot to 42nd place in the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index of the world's innovation economies, multiple sources reported. In compiling the rankings, Bloomberg factored in spending on R&D; and the number of high-tech companies in the country.

•Analysts from Oxygen Group predict the electric vehicle market in Ukraine will grow 300 to 400 percent for the year, which is three to four times the figure given for global sales, AIN reported. The number of charging stations will go up as well. The country now has more than 400, of which 100 are in Kyiv or the Kyiv region.

•International port operator DP World, one of the largest on the planet, is interested in a “concession” at the Odesa region Port of Yuzhne and is also prepared to invest in logistical improvements at the Port of Odesa, high-ranking official Boris Lozhkin wrote on Facebook, Ekonomicheskaya Pravda reported.

•Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelian said Antonov aircraft will receive EU certification, multiple sources reported.

•Four foreign companies are supplying imported gas to Ukraine to sell to local customers, a Naftogaz official said Tuesday, Interfax Ukraine reported. The countries represented by the suppliers are Hungary, Switzerland, Germany and France.

•Switzerland will provide $100 million in financial assistance to Ukraine by the end of 2017, President Petro Poroshenko said, multiple news outlets reported. According to Poroshenko, Switzerland is also ready to provide visa-free travel for Ukrainians immediately after the EU institutes such a policy.

•Ukraine's air travel boom in 2016 was felt nationwide, and the latest to report a banner year for passenger volumes is Vinnitsia's airport, whose 29,500 passengers in 2016 marked a nearly threefold increase from the year before, Novoe Vremya reported.

•Production of passenger cars in Ukraine decreased 23 percent in 2016 from the previous year, multiple sources reported based on preliminary data from Ukravtoprom. Eurocar for the year increased production of Skoda cars by almost 94 percent, while the Zaporizhia Auto Building Plant reduced production by 89 percent.

•Ukraine's ag exports in 2016 totaled $13.6 million, which was a 4 percent increase from the previous year, Unian reported. Agricultural products account for more than 40 percent of Ukraine's total exports.

•In two years, 2015 and 2016, Ukrainians pulled $11 billion out of the country's banking system, Ekonomicheskaya Pravda reported.

For comments and news tips, please email UBJ AM editor David Edwards at david.edwards@theubj.com.