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What did Kyiv gain in early November 2019?
Summary
A look back at two developments that placed Ukraine at the centre of legal and political attention in the days before 11 November 2019.
What had changed for Ukraine in the days before 11 November 2019? Two developments, one legal and one political, had put the country at the centre of international attention.
On 8 November 2019, the International Court of Justice, the UN's principal judicial body, found that it had jurisdiction to hear the case Ukraine v. Russia. The court rejected all of Russia's arguments against it. The ruling did not decide the merits of the case, but it cleared the way for the proceedings to continue.
Three days earlier, on 5 November 2019, the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump produced a notable turn. Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, reversed his earlier testimony and admitted to a quid pro quo in the withholding of military aid for Ukraine.
The two events were unrelated in nature, one a courtroom decision in a dispute between states and the other a political inquiry in Washington. Yet both left Ukraine prominent in the news as 11 November 2019 began.
