Monday’s here, which means a new newsletter showcasing the coolest and least cool news from Kyiv and Ukraine on November 2-8. We start with some cool international success
Cool news:
- Victoria Spartz has become the first immigrant from modern Ukraine to be elected to the US legislature’s lower chamber. After the November 3 elections, she won a seat in the House of Representatives for the Republican Party and the state of Indiana. Spartz was born in the northern Ukrainian Chernihiv region in 1978 and moved to the US in 2000.
- The results of the local elections have finally been announced officially. For Kyiv, this means that there will be no second round and the incumbent mayor Vitaliy Klychko got a whopping 50.52% of Kyivans’ votes (just over 365 thousand people). Pro-Russian politician Oleksandr Popov came second with nearly 69 thousand people supporting him, and Golos party’s Serhiy Prytula came third with 56,900 votes in favour.
- Ukrainians who aren’t wearing face masks inside public buildings will now be getting fined for the amount of 5-8 euros.
- Six Ukrainians have made it to the International Academy of Astronautics. Four of them will join it as active members there and two more as corresponding members.
- A Ukrainian start-up, Deep Green Ukraine, has created a service that allows tracking the change in forest landscapes. This will help fight illegal logging, which is a big problem in Ukraine. The pilot version of the project is already being implemented in the Kyiv, Lviv, Zakarpattya, and Odesa regions.
Uncool news:
- The Artemivsk rock salt field in the government-controlled part of Donbas has been owned by Russia’s Institute for Nuclear Research (a Russian state entity) since 2007 when it gained 20-year permission to manage it. Now, The State Service of Geology and Mineral Resources of Ukraine is asking the National State Defence Council to help impose sanctions on the institute.
- A 29-year-old man in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih has killed 2 people and injured a further eight in a knife attack. He’s been detained and faces 10-15 years of imprisonment.
- The Constitutional Court conundrum has led to disagreements in the presidential Servant of the People party, which may lead to the dissolution of the Ukrainian Parliament. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously initiated a bill that would stipulate the dissolution of the Constitutional Court, yet his party showed no agreement or unity on the issue. Zelenskyy said he might dissolve Parliament if there is a political collapse due to a lack of support for his plan. Meanwhile, investigative journalists found elite mansions, luxurious cars, and apartments worth 20 million hryvnias in the possession of the family members of the Court’s head.
- Ukrainian football club Shakhtar Donetsk has lost to Borussia Dortmund with a devastating score, 0:6.
- Former Servant of the People MP Oleksandr Yurchenko – who is suspected of receiving illegal benefits through his assistant for making amendments to a bill – has been officially released from having to wear an ankle bracelet.