Eleven prisoners held by Russia on politically motivated charges, including Oleg Sentsov, Edem Bekirov, Pavlo Hryb, Olexander Kolchenko, Roman Sushenko, and 24 Ukrainian sailors Russia captured in the Kerch strait in 2018, were part of the swap. Another major prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia-backed armed groups took place in December 2019.

In September, Russia and Ukraine exchanged a total of 70 prisoners. In 2019, environment for media in Ukraine remained unsafe. After taking office, Zelensky demonstrated commitment to carrying out anti-corruption reform and ending the armed conflict with Russia. Snap parliamentary elections in July delivered his party, Servant of the People, a single-party parliamentary majority, for the first time since Ukraine’s independence. Former comedian Volodymyr Zelensky won the presidential election in May. The three priorities for the 2020–24 programme are 1) improved social dialogue, 2) inclusive and productive employment, and 3) improved working conditions and social protection.Hostilities in eastern Ukraine entered their sixth year and continued to put civilians’ lives and well-being at risk, even as absolute numbers of civilian casualties dropped. The DWCP aims to address challenges where the ILO has key technical expertise to offer. Social dialogue needs to be intensified covering key topics of labour and social policies. Key challenges in the area of working conditions and social protection are a lack of prevention culture concerning safety and health at work, increased levels of informality, high wage arrears, a notable gender pay gap, and insufficient coverage and financial sustainability of the social insurance system. The global health crisis has negatively affected Ukraine’s performance in several of these areas and made addressing structural labour market issues even more urgent. Key labour market challenges of the country remain low employment rates with a pronounced gender gap, high labour emigration, elevated youth unemployment and inactivity, and a notable skills mismatch.

Ukraine economy 2020