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Russian party suggests rejecting results of Ukrainian presidential vote

The draft statement will be discussed during the State Duma’s plenary session on April 2, two days after the presidential election
The State Duma building Valery Sharifulin/TASS
The State Duma building
© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. Russia's LDPR party has submitted a draft parliamentary statement, headlined "On non-recognition of the results of the Ukrainian presidential election," to the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma.

Ukraine’s presidential election is scheduled for March 31. The draft statement will be discussed during the State Duma’s plenary session on April 2.

The document, uploaded into the State Duma’s database on Tuesday, says that "the due course of law during Ukraine’s presidential election is under question due to numerous serious violations and mistakes, committed by election commissions, which, as a result, failed to create necessary conditions for an equal and free vote."

"State Duma lawmakers believe that the widespread falsification of the results of the vote is intended to ensure the victory of a certain candidate," the document reads.

The authors mention a Ukrainian bill, signed into law on February 26, 2019, which bars Russian observers and international monitors with Russian citizenship from being accredited for the presidential election.

"The election campaign in Ukraine was held amid intense media propaganda to justify the victory of a certain candidate, including claims of Russia’s possible meddling with the vote and of recruiting some candidates. Certain candidates’ campaign slogans were based on accusing Russia of creating conditions for the economic crisis in Ukraine and for poverty of its citizens," the document reads.

It also says that Russian lawmakers are deeply concerned by the fact that the election was held "amid an unfair election campaign with the use of dirty technologies that constitute a clear breach of international principles and norms."

A number of politicians and Ukrainian experts have already described the current election campaign as the dirtiest in the entire history of the country’s independence.

Ukraine’s Central Election Commission earlier refused to register 24 Russian OSCE/ODIHR members as short-term observers. Prior to that, the commission denied registration to two long-term observers from Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that refusal to register OSCE-endorsed observers who have Russian citizenship was illegitimate.