Top 5 News Stories 24 June

1. Golos Party leader Kira Rudyk has stated that the resignation of his MP’s mandate by Slava Vakarchuk will negatively affect the party’s ratings, but only in the short term, she believes. Rudyk commented that when voters look at the people who make up the party and the values that they have demonstrated they stand for, they’ll continue to be recognised, post-Slava, as a trustworthy political force in Ukraine. Rudyk herself has a formidable business record behind her, having been the COO of Ring Ukraine when the company was acquired by Amazon for an easy billion dollars. Link

2. Staying with politics, it seems that after the last round of dual elections, Ukrainian citizens are not best pleased with what they elected. The President may have come into office with 73% of voters backing him to bring about change, but his negativity rating sits right on 50% because the country has not seen his anti-corruption promises fulfilled. The Cabinet of Ministers, who have only been in their jobs for a few months (except for Avakov) since the last reshuffle has a negativity rating of -54.3% and the parliament is lower still; despite having 80% new faces they’re polling at -55.4%. Link

3. Ukraine is edging ever close to Europe, according to the Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Olga Stefanishina. The Deputy PM is looking at three specific areas where there can be more streamlining of relations with our European friends, namely industry food and aviation. She appears to be buoyed by support from European counterparts, many of whom told her during the recent Eastern Partnership summit on June 18th that many of them saw Ukraine as a country that should be an EU member. Link

4. Coronavirus conquest unfinished. Some regions of Ukraine are doing better than others, and everyone knows that we must continue to be ultra-cautious to avoid an increase of cases down the road, but in a sign of cautious optimism the Ministry of Health has announced that 11 oblasts (including Kyiv) can relax quarantine restrictions to the next level. Sadly 14 oblasts have not yet met the criteria for an easing of their quarantines, but we can deduce that the government is actually doing a pretty good job of understanding and managing the health situation in the country. Link

5. Quoting the spokesperson of the President of Ukraine verbatim, “of 1,000 cities around the globe, #Kyiv was named as the 32nd best ecosystem in the world, 8th best in Europe, and 1st in emerging Europe in a report by startup Blink. Cities are rated according to the number of startups, how well they drive innovation, and the business environment.” We have nothing to add, just bravo Kyiv! Link