BERLIN, May 07. /ITAR-TASS/. Authorities in Kiev have been urged to stop military operations in Ukraine's east, challenged to halt hostilities in a message attributed to a senior German official promoting contact between the societies of Germany and Russia.

The approaching presidential election on May 25 demanded conditions for citizens “to be able to vote normally", said co-ordinator for German-Russian Intersocietal Co-operation Gernot Erler, cited by German daily newspaper Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung.

“In most parts of Ukraine it is possible without any problems, but not in the east,” Erler said. “That is why military operations there should stop so that nobody can say later that the election was incorrect”.