Ukraine refuses to register Russian observers for Presidential Elections
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will not accept applications for registration of Russian observers for the Ukrainian Presidential Elections, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin wrote on Facebook.
Klimkin said that several days ago, he wrote a letter to Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). He invited the monitoring mission for the Ukrainian Presidential elections.
“Among other standard things I pointed out that the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will not accept applications for the registration of Russian observers,” Klimkin stressed. He said that the decision was necessary as it was about the “aggressor country.”
Earlier, the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) announced that the voting stations in Russia located in the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow and Consulate Generals in Saint-Petersburg, Rostov-On-Don, Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk will not open. The Ukrainian Court ruled that this decision was legal. Klimkin explained that the voting stations would be closed because “holding elections in the territory of the aggressor-country is dangerous for voters.”
The Ukrainian Presidential Elections will be held on March 31. The electoral campaign started on December 31. As of January 9, the CEC of Ukraine registered five candidates: Ihor Shevchenko, Serhiy Kaplin, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Vitaliy Skotsyk and Andriy Sadovyi.