Coronavirus
By the morning of 4 August, Ukraine has registered 1,061 new Covid-19 cases. The total count has thus reached 74,219, including 40,613 recoveries and 1,764 fatalities.
There are almost no empty beds in the intensive and emergency care units of the central city clinic and the first city clinic of Ivano-Frankivsk due to the increasing number of coronavirus patients, the health of the city council's health care department, Mariya Boyko, has said, as quoted by Interfax-Ukraine. In recent days, Ivano-Frankivsk Region has been among the leaders by the number of coronavirus cases.
Lviv has refused to step up quarantine measures after it was placed in the orange zone. "There is no need to further adapt the city because we have been living in these arrangements for six months."
The Volyn regional state administration has decided to tighten quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The city of Lutsk is currently in the red zone, Lutsk and Lyubeshiv districts in the orange one, the city of Novovolynsk as well as Horokhiv, Kivertsi, Lokachy, Manevychi and Turiysk districts in the yellow one.
Chief Sanitarian Officer Viktor Lyashko expects the second wave of the coronavirus to hit Ukraine in October. He called on Ukrainians to take flu shots to prevent a possibility of simultaneous infection.
Trains will stop in the red zone only to allow its passengers to disembark and no-one will be allowed to step in, according to Transport Minister Vladyslav Krykliy.
Ukraine has lifted the ban of face mask exports as of 1 August, according to Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka.
Donbas
Russia-backed militants have committed three ceasefire violations since the start of the day, according to the evening update by the Joint Forces Operation HQ. The enemy provocatively fired with a grenade launcher near Pisky, Mayorske and Luhanske. The Ukrainian army sustained no losses and did not return fire.
Last week Russia has delivered at least 10 combat armoured vehicles, up to 30 lorries full of small arms, ammunition and military equipment and around 1,000 t of fuel to Donetsk and Luhansk militants, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry's spokesman Maksym Prauta has said at a briefing, quoting intelligence reports.
Economy
Businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavskyy's DCH and Chinese investors representing Skyrizon Aircraft Holdings Limited have reached an agreement on comprehensive cooperation, in particular in the development of the Ukrainian aircraft industry, including the Zaporizhzhya-based company Motor Sich.
Yaroslavskyy has become the owner of Bank Credit Dnepr previously owned by Viktor Pinchuk.
The Finance Ministry has placed government domestic loan bonds worth 10.25bn hryvnyas. Their maturity periods are six months, one and two years.
Prison sale
The Justice Ministry has announced the start of a "big sale of prisons". The first to be sold, on 6 August, is the Irpin correctional centre located in Kotsyubynske, 14 km from Kyiv.
Crime
The FBI on Tuesday raided the Cleveland offices of a real estate company, Optima Management Group, tied to Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyy that owns several downtown buildings, according to Cleveland.com. FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson said agents also executed search warrants at an office in Miami.
Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyy district court has extended until 2 October the arrest of a former deputy commander of the Special Operations Centre of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Maj-Gen Valeriy Shaytanov, suspected of high treason and abetting preparation of terrorist acts. He was detained on 14 April on suspicion of high treason to the benefit of Russia, in particular by preparing the murder of volunteer Adam Osmayev.
Following the recent violent attack on a female train passenger and the subsequent allegations about attendants' lack of action, the Transport Ministry has decided that railway staff will be allowed to carry and use gas sprays for self-defence.