Kyiv's anti-corruption court law and the G7 Russia debate
A retrospective on 8 June 2018, a day after Ukraine's parliament passed a law on a Higher Anti-Corruption Court and as G7 leaders argued over Russia.
What did Ukraine's reform agenda and its place in international politics look like on 8 June 2018? Two developments, one a day before the other, framed it.
On 7 June 2018, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law on the Higher Anti-Corruption Court. The vote came the day before the covered date and set the domestic backdrop as attention turned abroad.
On 8 June 2018, the 44th G7 summit took place. U.S. President Donald Trump called for Russia to be reinstated in the group. Russia had been suspended after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, supported the call, while most of the other G7 leaders rejected it.
The context of Crimea
The suspension that Trump wanted to reverse stemmed from events in February and March 2014. As later described, Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine, occupied it, and then annexed it after an illegitimate referendum. That took place amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. The invasion marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Seen together, the two items show a Ukraine completing a legislative step on judicial reform at home while the question of Russia's standing among leading democracies was reopened at the summit. Most G7 leaders rejected the proposal to reinstate Russia, and Italy's prime minister was the one leader reported as backing the U.S. president.
