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Two governments under pressure on 17 January 2020
Summary
A look back at a day when leaders in Tehran and Kyiv each faced public and political strain.
What did political pressure look like in Tehran and Kyiv on 17 January 2020? In both capitals, leaders were dealing with turmoil of different kinds.
In Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a Friday sermon, his first in eight years. He defended the Revolutionary Guards over the accidental killing of passengers aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, and he praised Operation Martyr Soleimani for giving a "slap on the face" to the United States. The sermon came as public anger mounted against the government over its handling of the Flight 752 disaster.
The aircraft had been shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on 8 January 2020. Protests followed once that became known, forming part of wider clashes in Iran that month, which grew out of the crackdown on the 2019 Iranian protests.
In Ukraine, the same day brought a government crisis. Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation after an audio clip, in which he allegedly criticised President Volodymyr Zelensky's economic policies, was leaked earlier that week. Zelensky then announced that Honcharuk was allowed to keep his position.
Two different tests
The two stories were unconnected in cause. In Iran, the pressure came from public anger over a deadly shoot-down and from a leader seeking to justify the military's actions. In Kyiv, it came from a leaked recording and a resignation that the president did not accept.
The outcome on 17 January 2020 was that Khamenei publicly stood by the Guards, while Honcharuk stayed in his post.
