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Two political stories on 17 January 2020
Summary
A look back at a day when Kyiv's government faced a resignation offer and Tehran's leadership faced anger over a downed Ukrainian airliner.
What connected a leaked audio clip in Kyiv and a Friday sermon in Tehran on 17 January 2020? Both put a government's credibility under public pressure, and both involved Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation on 17 January 2020. The move followed an audio clip, leaked earlier that week, in which he was allegedly heard criticising the economic policies of President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky then announced that Honcharuk was allowed to keep his position, so the resignation offer did not end in a change of government.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a Friday sermon, his first in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over their accidental killing of passengers aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, and he praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for delivering what he called a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger against the government over its handling of the crash was mounting.
Why the two stories matter together
The airliner had been shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020. The protests that followed formed part of wider unrest in Iran that month. Khamenei's decision to speak publicly, after eight years without a Friday sermon, showed how much pressure the leadership was facing.
In Kyiv, the episode showed how quickly a leaked recording could turn into a political test for the prime minister. His offer to resign and the president's decision to keep him in post left the government intact, with the question of its internal relations on display.
The two events were unrelated in cause. Together, they show a single day on which leaders in both capitals had to respond publicly to pressure over their handling of events.
