Poroshenko’s appeal to West against Russian election to remain unheeded, lawmaker says

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s appeal to the West to withhold recognition of the September 18 parliamentary election in Russia has no chances for success, believes Alexey Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee.

"Poroshenko’s appeal to the West to refrain from recognizing election to the State Duma has no chances for success, since non-recognition of the new Duma surely isn’t in the plans of Paris or Berlin," Pushkov wrote on his Twitter microblog on Wednesday.

A report on the Ukrainian president’s official website said earlier he had issued a call for staying away from recognition of legitimacy of the parliamentary election in Russia at the talks with the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault.

On September 10, Poroshenko issued an instruction to inform the Russian leadership on the impossibility of holding election of the Duma deputies on the territory of Ukraine. The press secretary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Maryana Betsa, said later setting up polling stations was impossible even on the premises of Russia’s diplomatic legations.

As a precondition for the voting in Ukraine, Kiev named the renunciation of election in Crimea and Sevastopol and the exclusion of candidates nominated by the Russian political parties in Crimea and Sevastopol from the ballots.

The Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on September 12 the Russian side would not consider any demands in this particular case.

"The thesis and conditions put forward by Ukraine surely cannot be taken into account under any circumstances," he said. "Russia won’t discuss the electoral processes on its territory with whichever country, without any doubt."

Vasily Likhachov, a member of the Russian Central Electoral Commission, told TASS earlier about 80,000 Russian voters were staying on the territory of Ukraine at present.

Election to the State Duma will be held on September 18 under a mixed system, with 225 deputies to be elected on party tickets and another 225, in single-seat constituencies.