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What did 4 September 2018 bring to the region?
Summary
A look back at a day when a chemical release in Armiansk, a church announcement and a funeral in Donbas shaped the regional picture.
What was happening around Ukraine on 4 September 2018? A chemical release in Armiansk, in Crimea, caused significant environmental pollution, according to reports from that date. It was the day's most concrete event, and it unfolded as other stories from the preceding days continued to draw attention.
On 3 September 2018, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated that the Orthodox Church intended to grant the Kyiv Patriarchate autocephaly. The statement came a day before the Armiansk release was reported.
On 2 September 2018, tens of thousands of people attended the funeral of Alexander Zakharchenko in the war in Donbas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said the day before that the murder was a provocation and that it would derail the stalled Normandy format peace process.
The Normandy format
The Normandy format brought together Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France. According to later accounts, the group first met informally in 2014 during the 70th anniversary of D-Day celebrations in Normandy, and it played a substantial role in mediating the Minsk agreements between 2014 and 2015. Its meetings continued until 2022. By early September 2018, as Lavrov's remark showed, the process was described as stalled.
A day in context
Taken together, the reports from 2 to 4 September 2018 show three separate threads: a diplomatic process under strain, an announcement about the Orthodox Church, and an environmental incident in Crimea. The reports from the time do not link these events to one another, and each is best read on its own terms.
