Honcharuk's resignation offer and a tense week for Kyiv
A retrospective on 20 January 2020, three days after a resignation offer that was not accepted and a sermon that angered many.
What was the state of Ukrainian politics on 20 January 2020? It was a Monday, three days after Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation, and the government was still in place.
The resignation offer came on 17 January 2020, after an audio clip was leaked earlier that week. In the recording, Honcharuk allegedly criticised the economic policies of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky subsequently announced that Honcharuk could keep his position, so the offer did not end his tenure.
A second shadow over the week
The same day brought a different kind of pressure. In Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave a Friday sermon, his first in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of passengers aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, and he praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for delivering what he called a "slap on the face" to the United States. His remarks came as public anger mounted in Iran over how the authorities had handled the downing of the plane.
The aircraft had been shot down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020. Anti-government protests followed, forming part of the wider unrest in Iran that month.
Two separate stories
The two developments were unrelated in cause. One was a leaked recording and an offer to step down that the president declined. The other was an airliner tragedy and the Iranian leadership's defence of those responsible. Together they marked 17 January 2020 as a day of pressure on leaders in both countries, and the days that followed, including 20 January 2020, were shaped by their aftermath.
