- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has announced he will run for the second term in the presidential election on March 31, confirming the near-universal expectation that he would seek re-election.
- Coincidence or not but Ukrainian Russia-friendly opposition officially nominated its presidential candidate Yuriy Boyko on the same day, Jan. 29, as Poroshenko announced he would run for re-election.
- Ukraine is not as corrupt as it was a year ago, but it’s still the second most corrupt country in Europe after Russia, according to Transparency International. According to the organization’s Corruption Perception Index for 2018, Ukraine has risen 10 places since last year.
- Soldiers from Russia’s Wagner private military company, 400 of whom have allegedly been sent to Venezuela to prop up its embattled authoritarian leader, President Nicolas Maduro, are in fact controlled directly by Russia’s military intelligence, Ukraine’s SBU security service has said.
- The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is working on a new plan to bring peace to the Donbas through implementing the basic provisions of the Minsk peace agreements.
- Ukraine’s controversial chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, who was under investigation for divulging secrets about corruption cases, looks to be off the hook for now. Prosecutors have closed a criminal case against Kholodnytsky.
- Ukraine’s tech sector earned the country an estimated $4.5 billion from exports of tech services in 2018. That’s almost $1 billion up on the previous year’s figure.
- The latest update on the anti-corruption court: The High Qualification Commission of Judges and the Public Council of International Experts or PCIE on Jan. 28 supported the banning 42 out of 113 candidates for the court from the competition due to doubts about their integrity and professional ethics.
- In January, Ukraine lost a devoted fighter for the country’s freedom, Omelan Kowal, whose 98 years spanned some of Ukraine’s darkest times, including World War II, and who devoted himself into cementing Ukraine’s sovereignty in the turbulent decades since independence.
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