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Scoop of the day: as recognised Ukraine as Enhanced Opportunities Partner

Scoop of the day: as recognised Ukraine as Enhanced Opportunities Partner

Coronavirus

Ukraine has registered a significant increase in the number of new coronavirus cases for two days in a row. The single-day increase by the morning of 12 June reached 683. There have been a total of 29,753 Covid-19 cases, including 13,567 recoveries and 870 deaths.

Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska has tested positive for coronavirus. She feels fines and displays no symptoms, the presidential office has said. Others in the family tested negative. She is isolated from the family.

Ukraine has lifted the ban on foreigners' entry which was introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March.

Kyiv may return some of the eased restrictions if the coronavirus infection rate goes up to 24 per 100,000 residents, mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has warned. This would affect large stores and shopping centres, markets and kindergartens.

NATO

NATO has recognised Ukraine as Enhanced Opportunities Partner. This status is part of NATO’s Partnership Interoperability Initiative, which aims to maintain and deepen cooperation between Allies and partners that have made significant contributions to NATO-led operations and missions.

Foreign policy

Billboards showing the coat of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) counterintelligence have been installed near the Russian embassy in Kyiv and the consulates in Odesa and Lviv. A mural saying "We remember, we win" was painted near the Russian consulate-general in Kharkiv.

Appointment

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed Vitaliy Bohovin head of the Zaporizhzhya regional state administration to replace Vitaliy Turynok, who took office in September 2019.

Economy

Ukraine has received the first instalment of $2.1bn from the IMF, its governor Yakov Smoliy has tweeted. The National Bank of Ukraine's international reserves have increased to its eight-year maximum of $28.7bn.

Board members of nationalised Privatbank were summoned to the Kyiv prosecutor's office over the bank's failure to oblige by a court ruling and pay over $250m to offshore companies of the Surkis brothers. The bank noted that there were numerous violations in the way the summons were written and served. They were allegedly backdated too.

Sixty-four MPs have appealed the so-called "anti-Kolomoyskyy" law with the Constitutional Court. The law prevents owners whose bankrupt assets were nationalised from reclaiming them.

Crime

Detectives of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) have foiled an attempt by a former high-ranking official to give a $6m bribe to the heads of the NABU and the Special Prosecutor's Office. According to Ukrayinska Pravda's sources, the bribe giver wanted a case against Burisma Holdings of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevskyy closed.

The European Solidarity faction has said that its leader, ex-President Petro Poroshenko has been subjected to illegal surveillance. Faction leader Artur Herasymov published the photos of cars with non-existant car plates near Poroshenko's residence.

The State Investigation Bureau has searched the house of former Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. The case allegedly concerns a former member of the Party of Regions who owns the house and leases it out to Omelyan.

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