MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. Member of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights Alexander Brod expects that Vladimir Zelensky, who has won Ukraine’s presidential election, will lift an entry ban on Russian human rights activists and public figures, who visited Crimea.
"As a human rights activist, first of all, I want one of Zelensky’s first steps to be the cancellation of lists, which include my fellow human rights activists, members of the Civic Chamber and the Human Rights Council, who have been unable to visit the territory of the neighboring state for five years as they had earlier visited Crimea, the Donetsk and Lugansk regions," Brod told reporters on Monday.
Brod also voiced hope that after Zelensky assumes power, the shellings of the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics will stop. "Without idealizing the winner of the election, we still hope for a thaw in relations, as our Foreign Ministry said, for a reset in Ukraine’s reality," he noted.
Ukraine’s runoff presidential election was held on April 21. With more than 96% of the vote counted, showman Vladimir Zelensky, a candidate of the Servant of the People party, is winning by a landslide with 73.14% of the vote. Pyotr Poroshenko, who has ruled the country for five years, gets 24.53%.