Russian attacks drive European gas traders away from Ukrainian storage

Good morning. We have several exclusive stories to start the week, including delays to Joe Biden’s manufacturing renaissance and TikTok’s misleading news alerts.

But first, we turn to the war in Ukraine. Persistent Russian attacks have deterred traders from taking advantage of Ukraine’s vast natural gas storage facilities, increasing risks and depriving Kyiv of scarce revenues.

Ukraine has the largest underground storage facilities in Europe, and last year provided EU companies with valuable space to park excess gas ahead of winter.

But this year, following a Russian spring offensive that targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, European volumes in June and July in Ukraine dropped to just a tenth of the quantities stored over the same period last year, even with EU storage facilities at 86 per cent capacity. This is what’s at stake for both energy groups and Kyiv.

• Ukraine incursion: Reinforced Russian forces have failed to push back Ukrainian troops, which have advanced 30km into the Kursk region. “We are going deeper,” said a Ukrainian soldier.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Opec publishes its August oil market report. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has its labour market outlook for the UK.

• Trump meets Musk: The former president said he would be doing a “major interview” with X’s billionaire owner tonight.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Revolut backer Balderton Capital has raised $1.3bn for European tech start-ups, the region’s largest-ever such venture fund. The fundraise comes at a busy period for the European venture capital industry, which has been more active than at any time before the boom year of 2021. Tim Bradshaw has the full story from London.

• UK start-ups: Dozens of small businesses that received taxpayer-funded loans under Rishi Sunak’s Future Fund face being wound up, adding to a growing pile of bad investments under the pandemic-era scheme.

2. Exclusive: Joe Biden’s planned US manufacturing revival has been delayed, with about 40 per cent of projects announced in the first year of the president’s signature industrial policy overhaul facing slowdowns. The FT held more than a hundred interviews with companies and officials, and reviewed filings and releases. Here are more details from the investigation.

• Kamala Harris: The latest FT-Michigan Ross poll shows the vice-president is now more trusted than Donald Trump on the US economy, a sharp change in voter sentiment following Biden’s withdrawal from the race.

3. Exclusive: TikTok has been sending inaccurate and misleading news-style alerts to users’ phones, including push notifications with false claims. The format is widely used to boost engagement with personalised video recommendations, but here’s how it could expose users to misinformation.

4. The Israeli military has ordered tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave shelters in parts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza in preparation for another raid on areas where it says Hamas fighters are operating. The forced evacuation order came after an air strike on Saturday on a school in Gaza City was confirmed to have killed at least 80 people.

5. Executives are flying less and cutting one-day work trips by plane, according to the chief of the Global Business Travel Association. The trade body does not expect inflation-adjusted travel spending, such as on flights, trains, hotels and other expenses, to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2027. Here’s why this “new normal” is here to stay.

• Executive pay: The pay of FTSE 100 chief executives surged by £560,000 to an average of almost £5mn last year, rebounding to levels not seen since 2017.

The Big Read

With political uncertainties in France and tax rules for the well-off being tightened in Britain and the Netherlands, Europe’s multimillionaires are restless — and it has never been so easy for the super-rich to relocate. As a result, the competition to attract wealthy people has intensified, with newer jurisdictions such as Dubai and Singapore muscling in on traditional territories such as the UK, Switzerland and Monaco. Here’s how low-tax countries are wooing the world’s wealthy.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Climate and the City: The financial centre is investing £68mn in an “extreme weather” plan, but experts say this is only a fraction of what will be needed.

• Susan Wojcicki: The former YouTube chief who helped shape online advertising and championed women in tech died this weekend, aged 56. Read our obituary.

• Automation: As more powerful financial analysis tools emerge, slick Excel skills alone may no longer cut it for private equity’s new hires, writes Sujeet Indap.

• Friendshoring: A recent deal between the US, Finland and Canada to build polar icebreakers is a model for collaborative industrial strategy, writes Rana Foroohar.

Chart of the day

The global insurance sector is rushing to keep homes and businesses insurable as climate change fuels more extreme weather and mounting losses. Policymakers and companies are using a combination of preventive and adaptive measures by property owners as well as new ways of measuring or insuring risks in an increasingly uninsurable world. 

Take a break from the news

Whether it’s bendy croissants on Ryanair or easyJet’s notorious cheese and ham “toasties” (damp loofahs the temperature of molten lava), Marina O’Loughlin laps up whatever comes off the aeroplane trolley. A self-declared food snob at ground level, the restaurant critic explains why her standards plummet once she is airborne.

Additional contributions from Benjamin Wilhelm