Kyiv's anti-corruption court law and the G7 Russia debate
A look back at how Ukraine's parliament and the G7 summit shaped the days around 13 June 2018.
What did the days leading up to 13 June 2018 mean for Ukraine's place in the world and for its reform agenda? Two developments, one at home and one abroad, stood out in the preceding days.
On 7 June 2018, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law on the High Anti-Corruption Court. The vote marked a step in the reform agenda around Ukraine's public institutions, and it came in the days before the covered date.
Abroad, the 44th G7 summit produced a very different kind of news for Kyiv. On 8 June 2018, US President Donald Trump called for Russia to be reinstated in the group. Russia had been suspended from it after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Italy's Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, backed the call, while most other G7 leaders rejected it. On 9 June 2018, Trump again called for Russia's return.
The annexation behind that suspension took place in February and March 2014, when Russia invaded and occupied the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine and then annexed it after a referendum that was illegitimate. It came amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, and it marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Taken together, the two stories set out the picture as it stood on 13 June 2018: a new legal step on anti-corruption institutions in Kyiv, and a public disagreement among G7 members over whether Russia should return to a group it had been suspended from.
