Kyiv had its first heavy snowfall of the season on the evening of Dec. 20, with 13 centimeters of snow rapidly covering the capital. Traffic ground to a halt across the city while the number of road accidents surged. For example, a tram derailed on Kyrylivska Street in the Podil neighborhood. The city authorities reported that they deployed 287 snow plows and 354 municipal workers to clean the snow off the streets. The snowfall was accompanied by a cold snap: Temperature fell to -9 degrees Ce

The number of workers who operate as individual entrepreneurs in Ukraine has hit a five-year high of 2 million, monitoring service Opendatabot reported on Dec. 20. In the first 11 months of 2021, a total of 85,000 new people registered as individual entrepreneurs, continuing a growing trend that's been going on since 2016, which only saw a downturn because thousands of inactive registrations were revoked, according to Opendatabot. An individual entrepreneur, also known as a sole proprietor and

Ukrainians who got Hr 1,000 from the government for getting their coronavirus shots are mainly spending it on cinema, books and theaters, according to new stats from the Ministry of Culture. The government began paying its promised cash rewards on Dec. 19 through the Diia mobile app. The bounty, meant to incentivize more people to complete their Covid-19 vaccinations, can be used to pay for movies, museums, concerts, fitness and domestic travel. "The top three places where this money was spent

In the first 10 months of 2021, more than 600,000 Ukrainians left the country and didn't return, according to monitoring service Opendatabot. “In total, from 2011 to 2020, 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens did not return to the country,” Opendatabot reported. “According to the indicators of 2021, we can expect that if there is no mass return of Ukrainians home in November-December, the total negative balance for 11 years will be more than 3.3 million people.” Ukraine has a population of approxima

The Health Ministry has signed an agreement to purchase Molnupiravir for the treatment of Covid-19, Deputy Health Minister Oleksandr Komarida announced on Dec. 17. Ukraine will purchase 300,000 courses of experimental antiviral pills. “Molnupiravir is a medication that blocks an enzyme needed by the virus to reproduce the genetic code. This should prevent the virus from multiplying and reduce the risk of severe disease,” said Komarida. "The drug is a pill, so it has no special storage requireme

The Cabinet of Ministers extended Ukraine's adaptive quarantine through March 31 to counteract the pandemic, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Dec. 15. "This means that all the rules for public places with Covid certificates, on wearing masks, on the (social) distance remain in force," Shmyhal explained. Under adaptive quarantine measures, Ukraine’s oblasts are color coded green, yellow, orange and red, depending on the rates of infection and hospitalization. Shmyhal said that the country

Kyiv's famous Petrivka book market will be torn down and replaced by another shopping mall, according to documents available on the urban planning department website of the Kyiv City State Administration. The open air book market has attained legendary status among residents of the capital. It is the largest place to buy books in the country, with over 100,000 titles. It's also the ideal place for book lovers to browse for hours, constantly uncovering new material. A weekly flea market is also

Health Minister Viktor Lyashko announced on Dec. 13 that Ukraine has reached the World Health Organization's recommended target of fully vaccinating 40% of its adult population against Covid-19 by the end of 2021. However, according to the WHO's Strategy to Achieve Global Covid-19 Vaccination by mid-2022, the goal for every country was to fully vaccinate 40% of the overall population, not adults, by the end of this year. According to the health ministry, a total of 32.6% of Ukrainians have now

The Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office has started an investigation into a fake Covid-19 vaccination certificate scheme organized by a police officer and a medical worker, according to a Dec. 10 announcement. Law enforcement suspects the Kyiv-based duo of entering false information about vaccination into the Helsi electronic system, which then ended up displayed as fake vaccination certificates in the government app Diia that tracks vaccination. Ukraine has a booming market of fraudulent vaccination cer

Lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, co-head of the pro-Kremlin 44-member Opposition Platform - For Life faction, failed to declare assets worth over Hr 73 million ($2.7 million), the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) announced on Dec. 8. According to the agency, Medvedchuk did not declare his Kyiv land plot and house, worth Hr 29 million ($1.1 million) and Hr 16 million ($592,000) respectively, in his 2020 asset declaration. The lawmaker was further accused of not specifying the

As the epidemic situation improves in Ukraine, the city of Kyiv and eight oblasts eased Covid-19 quarantine restrictions, moving from the strictest "red" status on Dec. 7. Donetsk Oblast has been moved into an "orange," second-strictest zone. Seven more oblasts, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Luhansk, Lviv, Odesa, Rivne, and Kherson oblasts now have the "yellow" status. Currently, 14 Ukrainian oblasts are yellow, one is orange, and 10 are red. To visit venues and events in the yellow zone,

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) placed an arrest on 13 passenger planes belonging to Russian company Smartavia Airlines because these aircraft were used to illegally fly to occupied Crimea. The SBU published an announcement on Dec. 6. The move starts the process that could lead to limiting where these planes are allowed to fly. The restrictions include European destinations, according to the SBU. The planes were used to illegally transport people across the Ukrainian border and violated

The European Council has announced on Dec. 2 it will provide 31 million euros to strengthen the capacities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces under the European Peace Facility program. Besides improving military resilience, the aid will also help the Armed Forces assist civilians in emergency situations. Ukraine will get the money over a period of 36 months. “We highly appreciate this step which reaffirms the strategic Ukraine-EU relations,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter

The new variant has not been officially recorded in Ukraine as of Nov. 29, according to Health Minister Viktor Lyashko. The World Health Organization warned that Omicron has many mutations that may make it more virulent than the previous strains and get around immunity. First reported in South Africa on Nov. 24, Omicron has been detected in a number of African countries, as well as Europe, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. To prevent the new strain from spreading in Ukraine, the health ministry

The latest sanctions target Russian-linked shipping company Transadria Ltd. and its vessel, the Marlin. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the sanctions on Nov. 22, in a report to Congress related to continued actions against the pipeline. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on a total of eight individuals and 17 vessels related to Nord Stream 2. However, Nord Stream 2 AG, the Russian Gazprom-controlled company which owns the pipeline, remains free from U.S. sanctions. President Joe Biden w