What did Ukraine's new Electoral Code signal by mid-July 2019?
A look back at the parliamentary vote on a new Electoral Code and a separate arms delivery reported in the days before 16 July 2019.
What was on the political agenda as of 16 July 2019? In Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada had days earlier, on 11 July 2019, adopted a new Electoral Code, a step in the country's legislative life that was still fresh when the covered date arrived.
The reports available from the period give no further detail on the code's provisions or on the vote count, so this retrospective confines itself to the fact of its adoption by parliament.
A separate development abroad
On 12 July 2019, Turkey received its first shipment of the S-400 missile system from Russia. The delivery went ahead despite calls from the United States and NATO to cancel the deal.
The two developments were unconnected in the reports from those days. Together they mark what was being reported in the run-up to 16 July 2019: a new electoral law passed by the Rada in Kyiv, and a Russian arms delivery to a NATO member that went ahead despite Western objections.
