Ukraine on 1 January 2019: campaign season opens

What did Ukraine look like as 2019 began? On 1 January 2019, the country was entering a year of presidential politics, just days after three separate developments had reshaped its situation.

The first was the start of the presidential pre-election campaign, which began on 31 December 2018. The vote itself lay ahead, but the contest for the highest office was now under way.

The second was the end of martial law. On 26 December 2018, it ended a month after an attack on three Ukrainian Navy vessels near the Kerch Strait. That incident occurred on 25 November 2018, when the Russian Federal Security Service coast guard fired upon and captured the three vessels as they attempted to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov on their way to the port of Mariupol. As reported later in background accounts, it was the first time Russian forces had openly engaged Ukrainian forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The third was economic. On 29 December 2018, the Russian government widened its sanctions against Ukraine. It banned imports of industrial goods, agricultural products and foodstuffs from Ukraine, according to an approved list.

A country between pressures

Taken together, these developments framed the opening day of the year: a campaign that had just begun, a security emergency that had formally been lifted days earlier, and a fresh round of trade restrictions from Moscow. The Kerch Strait confrontation remained the backdrop to both the emergency measures and the way the new year began.

For international readers, 1 January 2019 therefore marks a moment of transition. The formal wartime-style restrictions of late 2018 had ended, the electoral calendar had started, and the trade relationship with Russia had narrowed further.