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The Cabinet of Ministers appointed a new head of the State Customs Service and promised businesses support in the face of tougher quarantine restrictions, while the State Statistics Service announced a slowdown in the GDP fall – these are the main economic developments of the outgoing week.

Ternopil entrepreneur Taras Kovalchuk, who turned his hospitality businesses into a religious organization on the eve of the weekend quarantine, which allowed him not to close down on Saturday and Sunday, told UNIAN about the nuances of such reprofiling.

Armenia has surrendered. What exactly did the winners and the losers agree on and why did Russia so easily give up on its allies, and will Armenians and Azerbaijanis be able to coexist peacefully after the bloody confrontation?

The Cabinet of Ministers abandoned the adaptive quarantine model and switched to "weekend quarantine," the State Statistics Service reported a higher pace of inflation, while the national currency continued its slide after a short rebound - these are the key economic developments of the outgoing week.

In the United States, presidential elections are not over yet, but many are already calling Joe Biden Donald Trump's successor. He has already addressed the nation, outlining his future first steps as head of state. UNIAN polled experts on potential prospects awaiting Ukraine with the arrival of a new president across the pond.

The parliament approved at first reading the draft law on the 2021 state budget, the government spoke about a large-scale plan to allow the country to realize its significant potential in 10 years, while the Ministry of Economy announced a slowdown in the economic decline – these are the key economic developments of the first week of November.

In Ukraine, the number of new daily COVID-19 cases is on a steady rise. The Ministry of Health says once the daily figure reaches 20,000, the country's hospitals will be overloaded. Doctors will have to choose patients who must be treated first, while the others will have to rely on their own endurance and wait for rescue.

State-owned energy giant Naftogaz of Ukraine has raised by a third the gas price for households, the Cabinet of Ministers allocated almost UAH 3 billion for salaries to miners and payments to the unemployed, while the State Treasury announced a fourfold increase in the country's budget deficit - these are the main economic developments in the outgoing week.

Is the new Maidan broiling to erupt in November? This is no rhetorical question. The skirmish that various branches of government entered into following a scandalous ruling by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine "to abolish asset declarations" for officials is not only fraught with street protests, it also poses a threat to statehood.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in his annual address to the Verkhovna Rada said that the Ukrainian economy has withstood the blow of the pandemic and will be able to emerge stronger from crisis, the National Bank has kept the key rate at 6%, and the hryvnia has stopped falling – these are the main economic developments of the outgoing week.

Public interest in the case of Vasyl Stus hasn't abated, so UNIAN spoke with historian Liubov Krupnyk about whether there were lawyers in Soviet times who really defended their clients, or whether everyone, without exception, danced to the KGB's tune.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted that reintroducing a strict quarantine is possible due to the increase in the COVID-19 incidence. Businesses and experts fearfully await repetition of the spring scenario, which delivered a heavy blow to the economy. The Cabinet has not yet sent a signal that they have learned the lessons of the past and are now able to lead the country through this test with minimal losses.

Disgust, torture, and death… It's better to die than to further endure abuse… This is how five former prisoners of "Isolation," a former Donetsk art hub that the occupation forces turned into a secret torture chamber, speak of their time they did there. They all count on fair punishment for their offenders. However, will those human monsters from Isolation eventually be prosecuted?

The government extended the adaptive quarantine until the end of 2020, the IMF upgraded its forecast for the fall of the Ukrainian economy, while Zelensky and Duda agreed to expand economic bilateral cooperation.

Ukraine has signed a number of agreements with the European Union and UK, and introduced new digital services, while the country's international reserves have decreased by almost 9% – these are the key economic developments of the outgoing week.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development worsened the forecast for the fall of the Ukrainian economy in 2020, the State Statistics Service reported an increase in the average salary in August, while gas suppliers further raised gas prices ahead of the heating season – these are the main economic developments of the outgoing week.

Alexandra Voroshilova, coordinator of the Severodonetsk office of the Vostok-SOS Charity, told UNIAN how residents of Luhansk region ended up in a ring of fire, whether the authorities made conclusions after previous fires, and why some people cannot receive compensation for their destroyed property.

Ievgen Khlobystov, Professor at the Department of Ecology of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Academician at the Academy of Economic Sciences of Ukraine, expert with the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, told UNIAN, how Crimea is turning into a desert, what it has to do with the policy of occupation authorities and what awaits local residents.

Artem Kovalev, head of the subcommittee on river transport at the Parliament's Transport and Infrastructure Committee, ideologist and co-author of a high-profile bill on inland water transport, which is expected to revolutionize the national transport industry and tabled for a second reading on September 30, told UNIAN about the essence of the major reform and the critical state of the Ukrainian river infrastructure at the moment.

The Russian-occupied Crimea has been struggling without the Dnieper water as local ponds and rivers are drying up, as well as major reservoirs. Amid the unfolding disaster, occupation authorities put blame on Ukraine, while pursuing response initiatives that could ultimately destroy the ecosystem across the peninsula.