Ukraine's 1,000-hryvnia banknote arrives amid Washington testimony
A look back at the days around 28 October 2019, when Ukraine's central bank put a new high-value note into circulation and a US envoy's testimony drew attention to Kyiv.
What was happening in Ukraine's public life around 28 October 2019? Two developments, one financial and one political, framed the days leading up to that Monday.
On 25 October 2019, the National Bank of Ukraine put a 1,000-hryvnia banknote into circulation. It was a change to the country's cash, issued by the central bank.
Three days earlier, on 22 October 2019, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., testified before Congress as part of the impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump. Taylor said he had been told that Trump would withhold military aid to Ukraine, to help his own re-election chances, until Ukraine publicly declared that investigations would be launched. These concerned Burisma Holdings, a company that had hired Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, and Ukraine's alleged involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
The wider scandal
The testimony was part of what became known as the 2019 Trump–Ukraine scandal. As later described, it centred on efforts to press Ukraine to investigate Trump's political rival Joe Biden, and on a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package that Trump blocked. Contacts between the White House and the Ukrainian government had culminated in a phone call between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 25 July 2019.
So in the last week of October 2019, Ukraine's economic news, a new banknote, sat alongside a political story in Washington in which Ukraine and its military aid were central.
