First flights departing Ukraine will be vacation destinations, minister says

The Ukrainian
government is preparing to relax the quarantine regime to allow for the arrival
of foreign travelers, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told a May 29 press
conference, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua news site. Among the
conditions could be a 14-day self-quarantine after arrival, he said. Currently,
entry is limited to those foreigners who have a residency permit. The first air
flights departing from Ukraine to be renewed on June 15 will be to vacation and
tourist destinations, Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Krykliy said on television
this morning. They include Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Montenegro, and Croatia, he
said. Flights won’t occur to countries with coronavirus-related concerns, he
said, which means that Italy and Spain certainly won’t be among them. Flights
within Ukraine could be renewed earlier than June 15, he said. Instead of
14-day quarantines, visitors to Ukraine could be asked to undergo express tests
at airports, including a two-three hour wait for the results, he said.

The government
announced the launch of the third phase of relaxing quarantine restrictions on
June 1, including 42 intercity rail lines and 214 suburban rail lines, all
interregional and intercity bus transport, the Health Ministry said. Fitness
clubs (with the exception of spas and massages) and educational institutions
are allowed to reopen, but children under 12 years old are still forbidden to
gather in groups. Regions not qualifying to relax quarantine restrictions are
Chernivtsi, Donetsk, Lviv, Rivne, Volyn and the city of Kyiv. The
qualifications are adequate rates of infection, occupied hospital beds and
testing, according to the Health Ministry.

Ukrainian President
Zelensky signed legislation on May 30 to ease conditions for small and medium
enterprises recovering from the coronavirus quarantine. Bill No. 2166 removes
the requirement that individual entrepreneurs (known locally as “FOPs”) pay the
minimum Single Social Contribution (social security tax) in those months no
profit was earned. Also freed from the tax were FOPs engaged in independent professional
activity who (1) collect pensions, (2) are disabled, or (3) conduct business
activity simultaneously with their registered individual enterprise.

Ukraine’s cabinet
has distributed only 20% of the UAH 64.7 bln earmarked for a designated fund to
combat coronavirus as of May 25, the Kyiv School of Economics reported on May
29, citing Finance Ministry data. The fund was launched on Apr. 13, while the
decision to distribute the first funds was made on Apr. 27, the report said,
according to the epravda.com.ua news site. UAH 51.6 bln remains undistributed.

Among the reasons
for large numbers of Ukrainian medical workers being infected with the
coronavirus was the failure to implement preventative measures in hospitals,
Deputy Health Minister Viktor Liashko said in an interview with Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty published on May 30. “There weren’t developed any routes
for patients, zoning for unsafe and safe zones, and issues of exiting from
patient rooms and entering offices, where disinfection was supposed to occur,
how this was all supposed to work. All this was in the learning stages, but the
infection service was not ready in practice,” Liashko said.

An estimated 340 new
coronavirus infections were reported in Ukraine on May 31, Health Minister
Maksym Stepanov announced the next day, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news
site. Of the 340 new cases, 79 were medical workers (or 23.2%). Ten died on the
same day and 152 recoveries were confirmed. An estimated 468 new infections
were reported throughout Ukraine on May 30. New infections in the city of Kyiv
reached 58 on May 31, 81 on May 30 and 55 on May 29. 

Zenon Zawada: All
these reports further confirm the stabilization of Ukraine’s coronavirus
situation, for which the government has earned the
public’s support. It’s a bit unrealistic to
expect foreigners arriving in Ukraine to quarantine themselves for 14 days.
Airport express tests have the potential to cause enormous crowds at airports,
which seems to be self-defeating. So we expect flights to be limited (to avoid
crowding at airports), or other measures to be considered. What’s certain is
that air travel will remain fairly restricted even after June 15.