Kyiv's coat of arms row with British counter-terrorism police
A look back at a dispute over the Tryzub, alongside the Honcharuk resignation episode and the Flight 752 fallout, in the days before 23 January 2020.
What was Ukraine's government dealing with on 23 January 2020? Three storylines from the preceding days framed the moment, one of them a diplomatic dispute with London.
On 21 January 2020, Ukraine demanded that the United Kingdom's National Counter Terrorism Policing Network remove the country's Tryzub coat of arms from a guide to hate symbols associated with white supremacy and Neo-Nazism. Counter Terrorism Policing said the symbol had been included because of its use by National Action, a proscribed far-right terror group.
At home, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation on 17 January 2020, after an audio clip of him allegedly criticising President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies was leaked earlier that week. Zelensky subsequently announced that Honcharuk could keep his position.
The downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 also remained in focus. On 17 January 2020, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered his first Friday sermon in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of the passengers and praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for delivering a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger mounted against the Iranian government over its handling of the crash. The aircraft had been shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020, and the anger fed anti-government protests.
