Zelensky's positive COVID-19 test shapes politics on 10 November 2020
A look back at the political fallout in Kyiv after the president and the head of his office tested positive for coronavirus.
How did Ukraine's leadership respond to the news that its president had contracted COVID-19? On 10 November 2020, the question was in focus after reports from 9 November that President Volodymyr Zelensky had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The head of the Office of the President, Andriy Yermak, also received a positive result, according to reports at the time. Another report on the same day said that Zelensky and two top government officials had tested positive, placing the country's leadership at the centre of the pandemic in Ukraine.
The announcements came as the pandemic continued across Europe, with Ukraine among the affected countries.
A busy regional news day
The diagnosis was not the only major development reported on 9 November. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that he had signed a deal with Azerbaijan and Russia to end the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War by Tuesday morning, 10 November. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed the deal, and Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, described it as a trilateral agreement.
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.
