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Central Election Commission chief promises Russians residing in Ukraine will vote

The State Duma elections will be held on September 18

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. All Russian nationals currently residing in Ukraine who want to participate in the parliamentary elections voting, will be provided with an opportunity to do so, the head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) Ella Pamfilova announced on Wednesday.

"Concrete decisions will be made a little later, a number of questions depend on my colleagues and not on me… In any case, Russian nationals will not be deprived of the opportunity to take part in the polls, they will be able to cast their votes," Pamfilova told journalists. "I think we will solve this problem, we are working on some options. We will open polling stations in the neighboring countries," the CEC head added.

On September 10, it became known that Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko had issued instructions to inform Russian authorities about the impossibility of organizing voting in the Russian parliamentary elections on Ukraine’s territory. Later, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry’s press secretary Maryana Betsa explained that it was "impossible to organize voting even in Russian diplomatic and consular services’ buildings." The conditions set by Ukraine’s authorities for organizing voting in Ukraine is that Russia cancels voting in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and excludes candidates from the federal voting lists that represent political parties active in Crimea and Sevastopol.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 12 that "in this case Russia is not ready to consider any demands." He stated that conditions put forward by Ukraine "certainly can be taken into consideration, but under no circumstances whatsoever will Russia discuss its domestic electoral process with any country."

As Russian Central Election Commission member Vassily Likhachov previously told TASS, about 80,000 Russian voters are currently residing in Ukraine.

The State Duma elections will be held on September 18 on a mixed system: 225 members of parliament will be elected by party tickets, while the other 225 are going to be elected in one-seat constituencies.