Coronavirus
There are five variants of the coronavirus originating from China in Ukraine, the Public Health Centre has said, quoting results of a study of 50 samples from several Ukrainian regions analysed by a London-based laboratory. These are В1; В1.1; В1.1.1; В1.5 and В2.
The Ukrainian Health Ministry has signed a contract to buy 1.9 million coronavirus vaccine doses made by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, according to the presidential office.
On the morning of 30 December, Ukraine reported 7,986 new Covid-19 cases, 243 fatalities and 16,355 recoveries.
Donbas
Ukrainian serviceman Vadym Yefremenyuk from Vinnytsya died in the Joint Forces Operation in Donbas under undisclosed circumstances, the Vinnyytsya regional state administration has said.
Reshuffle
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed Viktor Mayko Ukraine's ambassador to Turkmenistan. Mayko held this post from March 2005 to May 2010.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed the head of the Cherkasy regional state administration, Serhiy Serhiychuk. Viktor Husak will step in as the acting head of the administration.
Iran air crash
The amount of compensation to families of people who died onboard the UIA PS752 flight shot down near Tehran on 8 January 2020 is to be agreed in the course of negotiations after it is established what caused the tragedy and perpetrators are brought to justice, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has said. Ukraine is expecting Iran to provide a technical report on how the plane was shot down.
Earlier, the IRNA news agency reported that the Iranian authorities would pay 150,000 dollars to the each bereaved family.
Constitutional Court
The law department of the Constitutional Court (CC) has said that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decree suspending CC head Oleksandr Tupytskyy is not in line with the constitution. The department insists that the constitution does not give the president the right to "suspend a judge of the Constitutional Court".
Economy
Two tranches of $700 million from the International Monetary Fund, which were expected to be allocated this year, have been postponed until next year, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko has told TSN.
Crime
Kyiv's Pecherskyy district court has granted a complaint filed by the lawyer of Burisma Group ex-manager Andriy Kichi. The court obliged Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova to take over the case on a 5m-dollar bribe to the leadership of anticorruption bodies from the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office.
The Prosecutor-General's Office has recalled its request to select a measure of restraint for a deputy chief of the presidential staff, Oleh Tatarov, from the High Anticorruption Court. It said that suspects in the case may be suspected of other crimes.