New Eastern Europe: Ukraine’s challenges in the time of a pandemic

Published June 6, 2020 at 3:46 am

Waiters clean up the Adelle restaurant as they prepare for quarantine restrictions banning indoor restaurants to be lifted in Kyiv on June 4, 2020. The government announced the indoor restaurants would be allowed to reopen on June 5. However, that day, the national and local government announced that Kyiv had too many COVID-19 cases for indoor restaurants to reopen.

Photo by Volodymyr Petrov

Below is the interview by New Eastern Europe with Aleksandra Reshmedilova, a leading political expert at the Civil Diplomacy Fund.

NEW EASTERN EUROPE: The whole world now fights with the COVID-19 pandemic. What is the situation like in Ukraine and what measures have been put in place by the government?

ALEKSANDRA RESHMEDILOVA: Ukrainian authorities acted proactively and did not allow an uncontrolled spread of the virus. The decision to implement a quarantine throughout the country was made on March 11th 2020, when the virus was not yet widespread in Ukraine.