What Ukraine faced on 23 January 2020

What was occupying Ukraine's politics and diplomacy on 23 January 2020? Three threads, each reported in the preceding days, framed the moment: a dispute with London over a national symbol, a government crisis in Kyiv, and the aftermath of the downing of a Ukrainian airliner over Iran.

A symbol in a British guide

On 21 January 2020, Ukraine demanded that the United Kingdom's National Counter Terrorism Policing Network remove the country's Tryzub coat of arms from a guide on hate symbols associated with white supremacy and Neo-Nazism. Counter Terrorism Policing said the coat of arms had been included because of its use by National Action, a proscribed far-right terror group.

A prime minister offers to go

On 17 January 2020, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation after an audio clip, in which he allegedly criticised President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies, was leaked earlier that week. Zelensky subsequently announced that Honcharuk would be allowed to keep his position.

Flight 752 and Iran's response

The same day, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei gave his first Friday sermon in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of passengers aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 and praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for delivering what he called a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger mounted against the Iranian government over its handling of the disaster.

The airliner had been shot down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020, and the revelation prompted anti-government protests in Iran, part of the unrest that swept the country that month.

Taken together, the reports from 17 to 21 January show Kyiv dealing at once with a domestic leadership dispute, a reputational row abroad and the fallout of a tragedy involving its flagship carrier.