What the Novi Sanzhary protests meant for Ukraine's public life
A look back at the unrest over evacuees from China and the Idlib escalation that framed the news in the days before 26 February 2020.
What did the news look like on 26 February 2020? In Ukraine, attention was on Novi Sanzhary, where protests against the arrival of people evacuated from China had turned violent days earlier.
On 20 February 2020, the protests damaged buses, and 10 people were injured. The episode showed how quickly public anxiety could spill into confrontation when a government decision reached a local community. It was a test for how authorities explain and carry out such decisions, and for how much trust residents place in them.
Abroad, the same date brought a sharp escalation in northwestern Syria. Turkish-backed rebels launched an offensive in the Idlib Governorate against government forces. A Russian air strike killed two Turkish soldiers and injured five others, while Turkey said its retaliatory strike killed 50 Syrian troops. Several tanks and armoured personnel carriers were destroyed near the village of Nayrab.
Turkey also formally asked the United States, its NATO ally, to deploy Patriot surface-to-air missile systems on the Syria–Turkey border, with the aim of deterring Syrian and Russian air strikes on its troops.
The two stories were unrelated, but both concerned how states handle pressure: one at home, in a town where tempers flared, and the other on a battlefield where allies were asked to share the burden of deterrence.
