What did Ukraine's diplomatic and political week reveal by 22 January 2020?

What was occupying Ukraine's public life on 22 January 2020? Three separate stories, reported in the preceding days, pointed to pressure on the government at home and on the country's image abroad.

A cabinet under strain

On 17 January 2020, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation after an audio clip, in which he allegedly criticised President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies, leaked earlier that week. Zelensky subsequently announced that Honcharuk would be allowed to keep his position. The sequence, a resignation offered and then declined, left the head of government in office but with the question of his relationship with the president aired in public.

A symbol under dispute

On 21 January 2020, Kyiv demanded that the United Kingdom's National Counter Terrorism Policing Network remove the Tryzub, Ukraine's coat of arms, from a guide on hate symbols associated with white supremacy and neo-Nazism. Counter Terrorism Policing said the emblem had been included because of its use by National Action, a proscribed far-right terror group. The exchange showed Ukraine contesting how a national symbol was presented in another country's official material, while the British side pointed to a specific group's use of it.

The aftermath of Flight 752

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 had been shot down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020. On 17 January, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, delivered his first Friday sermon in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of passengers on the flight and praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for giving a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger mounted in Iran over the government's handling of the downing, and protests followed.

What the days showed

Taken together, the stories show a Ukrainian government managing an internal dispute at the top, a diplomatic complaint to a close partner, and the continuing fallout from the loss of a Ukrainian airline's aircraft. Each was still developing on 22 January 2020.