All news

EU politicians not unanimous over Ukraine's future after parliamentary elections

German government considers those elections an important step towards stability, whereas an Italian politician and journalist Giulietto Chiesa believes that stability in Ukraine is still very far away

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. Ukraine’s newly-elected parliament is unlikely to restore Ukraine to stability, Italian politician and journalist, Giulietto Chiesa, has told TASS.

“Stability is still very far away. Apparently, after the elections the prevailing presence of right-wing parties inside the Verkhovna Rada will be used as a pretext for an offensive (against Donetsk and Luhansk regions),” Chiesa said.

He voiced the fear that Ukrainian politicians will be inviting pro-Western forces to join the conflict. “There is Poland and there are the Baltic republics. Apparently, there are people who may be preparing all this,” he said.

Chiesa sees the United States as the main actor in the Ukrainian conflict. “It has engineered the crisis in Ukraine to provoke Russia. It has used Ukraine as a big stick in order to break Russia,” he believes. “The aim has not been achieved yet, so it will be moving further on. I have the impression that the US leadership is determined to stop at nothing.”

A solution of the Ukrainian crisis may be achieved “only if Europe develops the awareness of the danger looming over it, because it would be an operation not just against Russia, but against Europe as well.”

On the other hand, “there will be no stopping the Americans as long as Europe fails to offer a different response.”

Chiesa said, however, that the West was no longer unanimous in its attitude to the Ukrainian crisis and in Europe there were tangible forces eager to cooperate with Russia.

For instance, “practically all leading companies in Italy are against anti-Russian sanctions.” “The Italian government is moving in one direction, while the business people proceed along a very different road,” he added.

Ukraine elections results “important step towards stabilization”

Germany’s government considers an apparently sweeping victory for Ukrainian pro-Europe parties in Sunday's parliamentary elections as “an important step towards stabilization” of the country, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin on Monday.

The vote showed people’s trust in President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Seibert said, noting that Ukrainian citizens explicitly voted for a new start without extremist or populist presence in the government.

Seibert expressed regret that the vote did not take place in every part of the country's east and called on Russia to influence people’s militia in order to ensure that the planned local elections in Ukraine’s eastern regions can be carried out in accordance with Ukrainian laws and under international supervision.

Russia hopes the new government will work for the interests of the people

Russia hopes that the new government of Ukraine will launch nationwide dialogue in line with the Minsk agreements, Russian Foreign Minister added.

“We presume that the government will also pay attention to its commitments under the Minsk agreements, such as launching a broad nationwide dialogue involving all the regions, political forces of the country to carry out a constitutional reform that has been promised a long time ago but has not still begun,” Lavrov stressed.

Moscow also hopes that the new Ukrainian government’s efforts will be aimed at working for the interests of the country’s people, Russian Foreign Minister told TASS.

“We wait for the final results. We hope that the election of the new Verkhovna Rada will make it operatively form the government, which will not be aimed at continuing heightening confrontation moods in the society and in Russia but which will be constructive and directed at working with Russia that is indispensable to meet the interests of the Ukrainian people,” Lavrov said.

“Particularly, the solution of social and economic problems and the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which in addition to the ceasefire and the disengagement of the parties, the withdrawal of heavy weaponry, envision priority attention to humanitarian problems in Donbass and mobilizing efforts for the restoration of the economy and infrastructure in the south-east,” he concluded.

People’s Front leading in parliamentary polls in Ukraine

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front is leading the elections to the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, with 21.58%.

A total of 60.2% of data from polling stations have been handled.

The Petro Poroshenko Bloc party is the second with 21.41%.

The Samopomich (Self-Help) party headed by mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovy comes third getting 11.16%. The Opposition Bloc led by Yuriy Boyko has 9.92%, Oleh Lyashko’s Radical Party has 7.35% and the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has 5.64%.

Voting turnout in the early parliamentary elections reached 52.42%. In 2012 the turnout was 57.98%.