What did Kyiv's early August 2019 look like?
A look back at two reports from the first days of August 2019: a trade deal ratified and soldiers killed in the east.
What did the news from Ukraine amount to by 12 August 2019? Two reports from the preceding days pointed in different directions: one concerned trade, the other the war in the east.
On 7 August 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law ratifying the free trade agreement between Ukraine and Israel. The signature completed ratification of the agreement on the Ukrainian side.
A day earlier, on 6 August 2019, four soldiers of the Ukrainian Ground Forces were killed in an attack by pro-Russian separatists near the village of Pavlopil, in the war-torn Donetsk Oblast. The war in Donbass was still claiming lives as Kyiv went about its economic business.
Taken together, the two reports show a government conducting foreign economic policy while the conflict in the east continued. Both reports date from the days before 12 August 2019.
