Patriarch's visit
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has arrived in Ukraine to take part in celebrations of Ukraine's 30th independence anniversary. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, who already met the church leader, described his visit as "symbolic and important for our country".
Russia is exerting "crazy pressure" to prevent as many foreign delegations as possible from attending the summit in Kyiv, the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, has said. In his words, at least one country refused to take part under the Russian pressure.
Crimea Platform
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will represent the USA at the Crimean Platform summit in Kyiv on 23 August and the Independence Day military parade the next day, the US embassy in Ukraine has said. Previously, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was planned to head the US presidential delegation.
Sanctions
The National Security and Defence Council has introduced personal restrictive sanctions on MP Andriy Derkach and other individuals on the US sanctions list. Sanctions were also introduced some anti-Ukrainian media personalities, such as the founder of the Strana.ua website, Ihor Huzhva, as well as Alla Bondarenko, Olha Shariy and Anatoliy Shariy.
Donbas
The Central Electoral Commission has said that it has been notified by the Donetsk and Luhansk military-civil administrations that it is impossible to hold local elections in 18 territorial communities located along the line of contact. These include 10 village, town and city territorial communities in Bakhmut, Volnovakha, Mariupol and Pokrovsk district of Donetsk Region and eight in Severodonetsk and Shchastya districts of Luhansk Region.
Economic Security Bureau
The Cabinet of Ministers has elected Vadym Melnyk head of the Economic Security Bureau. Before 2013, he had headed the department for investigating especially high-profile cases and worked at the Ministry of Incomes and Levies. Later he headed the main financial investigation department of the State Fiscal Service.
Gas company
Upon hearing the energy minister's report, the National Security and Defence Council approved an instruction to claim the Chekasy gas distribution company back into state ownership, secretary Oleksiy Danilov has said. He added that the state had lost control of the company due to fraudulent manipulations which are to be investigated by law enforcers.
Bank
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has finally banned Sberbank JSC (Kyiv), an affiliate company of Russian Sberbank, to use the trademark Sberbank in Ukraine, the Ukrainian state savings bank Oshchadbank, which initiated the motion, has said. Both Sberbank and Oshchadbank means a "savings bank" in Russian and Ukrainian respectively.
Coronavirus
Ukraine has registered 1,600 new Covid-19 cases.