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Why Kyiv changed finance and health ministers
Summary
A look back at the parliamentary vote of 30 March 2020, taken as the coronavirus epidemic and a financial crisis converged.
What did it mean to reshuffle two key ministries in the middle of an epidemic? On 30 March 2020, Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, elected Serhiy Marchenko as finance minister and Maksym Stepanov as health minister.
The timing defined the decision. The vote came as the coronavirus epidemic spread and a financial crisis loomed, so the two posts at the centre of the response, money and medicine, were filled together.
The regional picture was moving just as quickly. On 28 March 2020, Russia announced that all its borders would close from 30 March to counter the spread of COVID-19. Diplomats and freight truck drivers, among others, were exempt.
The same date therefore carried two signals: neighbouring Russia sealing its frontiers, and Kyiv putting new people in charge of public finances and health care. The appointments reflected a government adjusting its leadership under pressure, as the epidemic and the financial strain advanced together.
