Home › Politics › What did Kyiv's September 2020 politics turn on?
What did Kyiv's September 2020 politics turn on?
Summary
A look back at two items from the days around 16 September 2020: a new national security strategy and a plagiarism finding involving an acting minister.
What was occupying Ukrainian politics on 16 September 2020? Two developments from the preceding days framed the moment: a new national security strategy and a plagiarism finding involving a member of the government.
On 14 September 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky approved the National Security Strategy of Ukraine, titled "Human Security – Security of the Country". The document's title put people at the centre of the country's security thinking.
Three days earlier, on 11 September 2020, the ethics committee of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance ruled that plagiarism had been found in the work of Serhiy Shkarlet, acting Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine. The decision concerned the person then running the country's education ministry in an acting capacity.
Taken together, the two items show a political agenda that mixed long-term strategic planning with questions about the standards applied to officials. By 16 September 2020, the strategy had been signed and the committee's finding had been issued.
