And speaking of China and Ukraine's defense industry, RFE/RL's Todd Prince has also been looking into an aspect of this story:
Vyacheslav Boguslayev, an 80-year-old Ukrainian tycoon, and his Motor Sich aircraft-engine producer are caught up in the rivalry between the United States and China. Whose hands the company falls into could impact Chinese investment in Ukraine -- as well as U.S. military assistance to Kyiv.
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
In Ukraine, Top Zelenskiy Aide Is Likely Favorite To Be Next Prime Minister
By RFE/RL
The political party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will likely offer the post of prime minister to Oleksiy Honcharuk, one of the presidential office’s deputy heads, Reuters reports, citing one of the party’s lawmakers on August 27.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg and the Ukrainian online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda both also reported this week that Zelenskiy favors Honcharuk.
"We considered the only candidate – Mr. Honcharuk. We had the possibility to talk to him and ask any questions," Servant of the People party lawmaker Iryna Vereshchuk said on a TV talk show on August 27.
According to the Ukrainian Constitution, the ruling coalition or majority party in parliament appoints the prime minister, as well as cabinet posts, the chief prosecutor, and other positions.
Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party took a solid majority of 254 parliamentary seats in last month’s elections.
On Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24, the president said he had narrowed the selection down to two people.
"I have to make this decision this week, I have no time to wait,” Zelenskiy said. “I could honestly say…I like a few people. I won’t tell who exactly. I’ll just say there are two."
In July, Zelenskiy said he wants the prime minister to be a professional economist and an “absolutely independent person who has never been a prime minister, [parliament] speaker, or a leader of any [parliamentary] faction.”
The new parliament gets sworn in on August 29, but the prime minister won’t be named and the cabinet won’t be formed that day, said the next likely speaker of parliament, Dmytro Razumkov, as reported by Interfax.
Honcharuk, 35, spent much of his career as a lawyer, eventually becoming a lead partner at a firm that specializes in real estate development. In 2015 he ran the EU-funded nongovernmental organization BRDO that focused on reforms and advised Stepan Kubiv, the first deputy prime minister during former President Petro Poroshenko’s administration.
Current Finance Minister Oksana Markarova is also a top candidate for prime minister, Zelenskiy told RFE/RL on August 24.
With reporting by Ukrainska Pravda, Bloomberg, Reuters, and Interfax
Ex-Ukrainian Health Minister Detained On Arrival In Kyiv, Wanted On Fraud Charges
Ukraine's former Health Minister Rayisa Bohatyrova has been detained in Kyiv upon her arrival from the Belarusian capital, Minsk, following five years of self-imposed exile in an unspecified country.
The State Border Guard Service said that Bohatyrova was detained at the Zhulyany airport on August 27.
Bohatyrova served as Ukraine's health minister in the government of President Viktor Yanukovych, who was toppled by pro-European mass protests in 2014 and fled to Russia.
Bohatyrova also left Ukraine after Yanukovych was toppled and in June 2014 was charged in absentia with embezzling 6.5 million hryvnyas ($260,000) of public funds.
Based on reporting by UNIAN and Ukrayinska Pravda
Ukraine Parliament Speaker Signs New Electoral Code Long Pushed For By The West
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV -- Outgoing Ukrainian parliament speaker Andriy Parubiy on August 27 signed a bill that amends the electoral code to make political party lists open and eliminates single-mandate constituencies in future elections.
Parubiy posted the 556-page electoral code on Twitter. It only requires President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s signature for it to enter into force on December 1, 2023, after the next scheduled vote to parliament.
Changing the electoral code was a key element of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement that was ratified in September 2014.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as the Venice Commission, the EU’s constitutional advisory body, have also stressed the importance of making the changes to strengthen the nation’s democratic institutions.
Before, half the legislative body’s seats were allocated proportionally based on party lists, but the law stipulated that only the first five candidates on the lists had to be shown.
Election watchdogs criticized the nontransparent feature, which enabled dubious candidates to remain unknown and parties to sell seats to the highest bidder seeking a mandate.
Ukrainian legislators enjoy immunity from prosecution.
Similarly, the other half of seats got allocated to single-mandate election districts where vote-buying was rampant, according to Ukrainian election watchdogs Opora and the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.
During its last session, the outgoing parliament voted for the bill in its second and final reading on July 11.
The next scheduled election is in October 2023 and will be held under the previous system unless the electoral code gets amended before that.
Otherwise, elections after that will solely be based on an open-party list proportional system.
On July 11, the president’s representative in parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, said the presidential office will first “analyze” the new electoral code before Zelenskiy decides to sign it.
With reporting by Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske, and 112
Russian Journalist Vyshinsky Jailed In Kyiv Released Ahead Of Trial
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A Kyiv court has ruled that Russian journalist Kirill Vyshinsky, who is in detention in Ukraine on high treason charges, can be released on his own recognizance as he awaits trial.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal handed down the ruling on August 28, saying he must inform the court about any change of residence and that he must refrain from any contact with witnesses in his case.
He will not be required to wear an electronic bracelet, it added.
Vyshinsky, the head of Russia's state-run RIA Novosti's office in Ukraine, was arrested in May 2018 and faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.
His arrest came amid accusations in Kyiv that RIA Novosti Ukraine was participating in a "hybrid information war" waged by Russia against Ukraine.
Vyshinsky, who at the moment of his arrest had dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship, was accused of allegedly receiving financial support from Russia via other media companies registered in Ukraine in order to disguise links between RIA Novosti Ukraine and Russian state media giant Rossia Segodnya.
Weeks after his arrest, Vyshinsky announced that he had given up his Ukrainian citizenship, called his arrest a "political order," and suggested that he was arrested in order to use him in a swap with Moscow for a Ukrainian being held in Russia.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement to the Govorit Moskva radio station that Vyshinsky’s release is "the first step towards justice for the journalist."
Russian ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova told reporters in Moscow that she considers the court's ruling "a just decision without political grounds."
"It gives hope to further objective investigation of the case against the journalist," Moskalkova said.
Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv have risen sharply since Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and threw its support behind separatists in eastern Ukraine, helping start a war that has killed some 13,000 people.
Ukraine's pro-Western government is wary of Russian media outlets, accusing Moscow of distributing disinformation aimed at sowing tension and destabilizing the country. Kyiv has banned more than a dozen Russian television channels since 2014, accusing them of spreading propaganda.