Missile alerts cost Ukraine $45m for every hour they halt businesses. Figure cited by minister highlights trade-offs Kyiv faces as it tries to keep normal life moving amid Russian strikes Missile alerts are costing Ukraine an estimated $45m (£34m) for every hour they bring business to a halt, according to the country's economy minister, as Kyiv searches for ways to keep the economy running under an intensifying Russian bombardment. Russia has increasingly targeted the infrastructure underpinning Ukraine's economy, striking industrial sites, warehouses, logistics hubs and datacentres in what Oleksandr Kravchenko, the minister for economy and the environment, described as an effort to "destroy pretty much the entire economy". "What we had not fully anticipated was how quickly Russia would develop these jet-powered drones and use them to target everything," he said, referring to Russia's use of the new weapons that have pounded Kyiv in recent weeks. Speaking from the heavily protected government building in Kyiv, Kravchenko, a former McKinsey executive who joined the government in the summer, said the attacks were forcing large parts of the economy into repeated standstills as workers were sent to shelters, with sirens lasting up to 10 hours a day. "If people are in a bunker, business stops," he said. To ease the economic costs, the government recently introduced a new two-tier warning system designed to keep businesses operating during prolonged air raid alerts. A "red" alert warns of a missile threat and requires people to seek shelter, while a "yellow" warning is used for drone threats, allowing many businesses to remain open. More than half of businesses were continuing to operate during yellow alerts, Kravchenko said. But a yellow alert is no guarantee of safety. That danger was made clear on Monday, when a Russian jet-powered drone struck the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv during a yellow alert, killing two people while staff were still inside working. It is one of the difficult trade-offs Ukraine faces as it tries to keep normal life moving while protecting people from an escalating campaign of Russian strikes. Kravchenko said Russian attacks this year alone had caused an estimated $10bn in damage to fixed assets, with steel plants, warehouses, logistics infrastructure and, most recently datacentres, among the targets. Russia has also effectively blockaded Ukraine's Black Sea ports, which before the blockade carried the bulk of the country's exports. The minister believed the government was better prepared this year for what could be the "hardest, the harshest winter" of the war, with further pressure expected on energy supplies, infrastructure and businesses already weakened by months of strikes. To protect against future strikes, the government is now discussing ways to allow more private companies to purchase Ukraine's air-defence system, the minister said, although he cautioned that businesses could never fully protect themselves from Russian missiles and drones. The ongoing damage from strikes has added to an already severe strain on the state's finances. The president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has recently put Ukraine's remaining budget shortfall this year at about $27bn, a figure that has prompted questions among some European governments over how the gap emerged, despite the EU having already agreed a €90bn loan package for Ukraine covering 2026 and 2027. Kravchenko said the government had since narrowed the shortfall to $20bn through spending cuts and by identifying additional domestic reserves. Kyiv was now seeking further support from the EU, Japan, Canada and the UK, including potentially bringing forward loans that had been earmarked for next year, Kravchenko said. "There is very active work with all our international partners to get additional sources of funding," he said. Kravchenko dismissed suggestions that the shortfall was the result of mismanagement or corruption. He also said it was not due to excessive spending under former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, whose drive to overhaul military procurement and rapidly expand Ukraine's drone programme had made him one of the government's most prominent reformers before his dismissal in July, a move that triggered street protests. Instead, he said the gap reflected both weaker-than-expected state revenues and the rising cost of waging the war. "The cost of war is simply increasing," he said, pointing to the need for more air-defence systems and for Ukraine to accelerate development of drones capable of intercepting Russia's new jet-powered weapons. But high-profile corruption scandals have also reached Zelenskyy's inner circle, straining trust in the government both at home and among western donors. A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that corruption in government was the most cited concern among Ukrainians, named by 50% of respondents, ahead of mass missile and drone strikes at 40%. The same survey found that 72% believed Zelenskyy bore personal responsibility for corrupt actions by people around him. Kravchenko said progress had been made to tackle the issue but admitted that Ukraine faced both corruption itself and a persistent perception problem both inside Ukraine and abroad. "I very much appreciate the pressure of European partners on reforms," he said, adding that Ukraine also needed to tackle perceptions of corruption at home and abroad. Ukraine's external financing needs for 2027 are estimated at $52.6bn, but only about $20bn has so far been secured, according to the minister, with further tax rises and spending cuts under discussion. Asked whether the rise of parties sceptical of support for Ukraine in France and Germany could weaken western commitment to Kyiv, he said: "Am I worried? I think I should be, probably." "The overall fatigue is increasing in Europe," he added.

AllianceBernstein boss Seth Bernstein to retire as Erzan takes helm. September 25 2026 Global investment firm AllianceBernstein (AB) has named its president, Onur Erzan, as its next chief executive, succeeding Seth Bernstein, who has led the firm for nearly a decade. Bernstein will retire from his role as chief executive on 31 March 2027, but will remain on its board of directors, the $919bn (£693.8bn) asset manager said. During his tenure, the firm stated that Bernstein has moved AB beyond its roots in active public markets asset management into private alternatives, private wealth, insurance asset management and retirement solutions. He has also overseen the relocation of AB's headquarters to Nashville and the creation of AB India. "It has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead this remarkable firm," said Bernstein on his retirement. Erzan will take on the combined role of president and chief executive from 1 April 2027. He became president in January 2026, overseeing the firm's private wealth management, global private alternatives and global asset management distribution businesses, and has focused in particular on expanding AB's private credit and broader retirement income offerings. Before joining AB, Erzan spent 20 years at McKinsey, most recently as a senior partner and co-leader of its wealth and asset management practice. "I am honoured to lead AB at such a pivotal moment in our history," said Erzan. "I look forward to writing the next chapter of AB's story alongside our talented and committed colleagues across the globe."

McKinsey: Agentic AI can unlock new monetisation opportunities for telcos. Sep 25, 2026 McKinsey's Ivan Ostojic presents his keynote during Casa26 * Casa26 keynote highlights revenue opportunity from agentic AI * Telcos can capitalise on sticky infrastructure assets, reckons McKinsey's Ivan Ostojic * Network capabilities such as analytics and fraud detection could be money-makers in AI age * But telcos need to avoid pilot purgatory and focus their AI efforts, he stressed For years, telecom operators have watched other companies capture value from services built on top of their networks, but the rise of agentic AI could open up new monetisation opportunities for the industry. That was one of the messages from Ivan Ostojic, a partner at global management consulting firm McKinsey, during his presentation at the recent Casa26 event in Amsterdam, where he argued that AI is reshaping the economics of the communications stack. During his keynote at the event, organised by the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance (CPaaSAA), the McKinsey man argued there is growing pressure on the API reseller model, which he claimed is "structurally deteriorating". Companies that package network connectivity into APIs have benefited from making it easier for developers to build communications services, but Ostojic believes that position is becoming harder to defend. Agentic AI could reduce the developer lock-in that has traditionally helped API providers retain customers, and that trend could ultimately put pressure on some communications platform as a service (CPaaS) providers. It also highlights the value of the infrastructure that underpins such services, he added. Carrier-grade network infrastructure is not necessarily a high-margin business, Ostojic said, but it has one important advantage: it is difficult to displace. "That position is defendable when it comes to strategy, but it's low margin, and it's getting more and more squeezed. But once it's provisioned, it's sticky. People don't change this very quickly, and it's not so easy to displace [physical infrastructure] because there is a limited number of companies that build the networks around the world." Value in the AI stack But Ostojic's presentation was not just about the impact of current trends on the CPaaS sector - he also addressed the much bigger shift taking place as AI moves from copilots and assistants towards agents capable of handling entire workflows. McKinsey sees potentially significant productivity gains as agents learn to work together, creating a substantial new pool of enterprise technology spending, he explained. The opportunity for operators, then, may not simply be to sell more connectivity to AI companies: Rather, it is to make the network itself a more valuable part of the AI stack, by leveraging the capabilities that are most difficult for other companies to replicate. Ostojic highlighted identity, live network signals, fraud detection and analytics generated during communications as examples of assets that can be built into AI services. He explained: "The network-only assets are really defendable things. If you can have real-time signals on fraud, real-time analytics during the interaction - whether it's call or messaging - [and] if you can have network assets and infrastructure, that's much harder to destroy than the reseller API economics." That potentially gives operators a different route into the AI opportunity. Rather than simply trying to become another software or CPaaS company, they can use the network as the foundation for services that combine connectivity with data, intelligence and compute. Ostojic warned that API providers with no strong network connectivity assets are particularly exposed in the AI era. "That archetype is going to be squeezed completely because the economics are really eroding. They're squeezed from both sides, and when agentic AI comes in, there will be even more squeeze because you won't have so much developer lock-in. On one hand, they don't have a software premium to protect the margin. On the other hand, they also don't own any of the network assets." For operators, that makes the strategic question less about whether to become an AI company and more about where their existing assets can give them an advantage. "You need to choose your posture, your archetype. You can't be everything - really specialise and go deep, whether you're going up the stack or you're owning the network. That's critical if you want to have a source of sustained competitive advantage" in the AI economy. Escaping pilot purgatory Ostojic doesn't think telcos are starting from as far behind as they sometimes assume. McKinsey's analysis of the market, in terms of capabilities and AI maturity, puts telcos behind technology companies, but he said the gap is smaller than the industry might think. He pointed to Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US's use of AI in customer support, including a reported 10% improvement in first-contact resolution and more than 8,000 agents upskilled to use AI. "Every year we run a tech and AI maturity index where we're benchmarking maturity. As you would expect, the tech companies are leading, but actually, telcos are not much behind," he said. He noted that the telecom sector often criticises itself for being too slow, "but there is a good momentum in this industry." The bigger problem, argued Ostojic, is what happens after the initial pilot stage of AI adoption. His advice to operators is to "escape pilot purgatory": According to figures released last year by MIT, less than one in ten AI pilots reach production. "Adoption doesn't mean advantage," Ostojic said. "The game is changing now. The real question is - how can players in this industry attack this budget? I think it's better to focus on a couple of use cases that will transform domains in your companies" and have a tangible impact with those targeted efforts, rather than "trying to do everything everywhere, throwing a copilot to people and hoping it will work. We need to escape this purgatory and find a few vertical use cases to scale." For telcos, then, AI may not be about finding a way to leave the network behind but making the network more useful to the AI economy. - James Pearce, Editor, TelecomTV Coming up on 29 September! Join experts from Dell Technologies, Intel and SUSE for a panel discussion on building the AI factory for telecom, exploring how CSPs can build the foundations for more intelligent, automated, sovereign and AI-ready networks. Register to watch live. AI-Native Telco Index: Our new report evaluates the AI-native progress of 56 telcos and identifies nine 'AI Vanguard' operators. Access the executive summary and find out how to access the full 276-page report.