What Kyiv's new government looked like on 10 March 2020
A look back at the political situation in Ukraine days after the Verkhovna Rada dismissed one cabinet and began forming another.
What did Ukrainian politics look like on 10 March 2020? The country was in the middle of a government handover, following a vote in parliament six days earlier.
On 4 March 2020, the Verkhovna Rada accepted the resignation of the government of Oleksiy Honcharuk and began forming a cabinet under Denys Shmygal. The Honcharuk government had been voted out after less than six months in office. President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed Shmygal for the post of Prime Minister.
The change meant that, as of 10 March 2020, the country's executive branch was being rebuilt in a matter of days, with parliament moving directly from dismissing one government to assembling its successor.
A parallel diplomatic track
The same day, 4 March 2020, also brought a development on another matter involving Ukraine. Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne urged Iran to allow access to the flight recorders of the Ukrainian passenger plane shot down in January.
The aircraft was Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737-800 on a scheduled service from Tehran to Kyiv. It was shot down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shortly after takeoff on 8 January 2020, killing all 176 people on board.
Together, the two developments framed the early days of March 2020: a rapid change of government at home and continued international pressure over the accountability for the downed airliner.
