What did Zelensky's positive COVID-19 test mean for Kyiv?
A retrospective on the announcement that the president and the head of his office had tested positive for the virus.
What happened in Ukraine's top leadership on 9 November 2020? As reported at the time, President Volodymyr Zelensky tested positive for COVID-19, as did the head of the Office of the President, Andriy Yermak. Reports that day said two top government officials were among those infected alongside the president.
The news placed Ukraine's pandemic experience squarely at the centre of public life. The country's situation was being tracked as part of the wider COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, and the infection of the president and a senior aide made clear that the virus had reached the highest level of government.
A busy day beyond Ukraine's borders
The same date brought major news in the region. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that he had signed a deal with Azerbaijan and Russia to end the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War by the morning of Tuesday 10 November. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed the deal. Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, later spoke of a trilateral agreement, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russian peacekeepers would be deployed.
The agreement ceded several districts to Azerbaijan, including the Lachin District, and provided for a transport corridor through Armenia linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan.
For Ukraine, the day's central story was the health of its leadership, set against a regional backdrop of rapid diplomatic change.
