Russia-owned discount retailer to open 40 new stores in Ukraine

One of Russia’s fastest-growing supermarket chains, Svetofor, has plans to expand its discount retailer Mere in Ukraine and open 40 new stores in 2021, according to Mere’s director in Ukraine Artem Khomenko.

The company already has one store in Mykolaiv, a city of 486,000 people, nearly 478 kilometers south of Kyiv. Over the next week Mere will open stores in Bila Tserkva, Chernivtsi and Dnipro. Khomenko told the Kyiv Post that Mere plans first to enter cities with a population of over 6,000 people but eventually Kyiv as well.