- Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy has for the first time taken the lead in a major presidential election opinion poll with 19 percent, according to a survey taken on Jan. 16-24 and released by Ukraine’s Rating Group on Jan. 31.
- The supervisory board of Ukraine’s Suspilne Telebachennya (Public Television) on Jan. 31 fired Zurab Alasania as the CEO of the channel. The decision arrived exactly two months before the presidential election in March, evoking fears of censorship at the state-funded station.
- In the fifth year of defending itself against Russia’s, Ukraine faces a deepening and ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country’s east, United Nations’ relief workers warned on Jan. 31.
- A new political party called Warriors of the Anti-Terrorist Operation announced on Jan. 31 that Colonel Serhiy Kryvonos, the deputy commander of Ukraine’s special forces, will be its candidate in the upcoming presidential elections on March 31.
Business news
- The Center for Transport Strategies on Jan. 30 published an infographic showing that 20.5 million people traveled trough Ukrainian airports in 2018, a 24.5 percent increase compared to 2017, which was itself a record year.
- Ukrainian politicians, lawyers and energy company executives courted international gas producers at the Ukrainian Gas E&P Forum in London on Jan. 29, as the country continues along the path to developing its untapped gas reserves, which are widely believed to be substantial.
- The number of Ukrainian households that installed solar panels in 2018 more than tripled and reached 7,500, the total installed equipment capacity is almost 160 MW.
- Remittances to Ukraine from labor migrants in 2018 reached $11 billion.
- The National Bank of Ukraine has raised its forecast for the country’s international reserves by the end of 2019 from $ 18.6 billion to $20.6 billion.
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