Amid continuing military operation in Ukraine’s east, presidential elections have started on Sunday. Precisely at 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) polling stations have opened on the country. Overall, 35.5 million citizens have the right to vote for Ukraine’s president.

The registration of presidential nominees has finished April 4, 2014. 23 candidates have been registered. They had the right to withdraw from the elections until May 2. Verkhovna Rada member Oleh Tsariov and leader of the ‘Ukraine — Forward!’ party Natalia Korolevska withdrew from the election race. May 1, they wrote applications for Ukraine’s Central Election Committee (CEC) and were officially withdrawn from the elections on the following day. After May 1, leader of the civic alliance ‘New Kiev’ Zoryan Shkiryak, chairman of Ukraine’s Communist Party Oleksandr Klimenko and ex-chief of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine Vasyl Tsushko have refused to take part in the elections. However, according to the Ukrainian legislation, their names remain in the ballots.

Thus, the ballots have names of 21 nominees, but in effect only 17 people representing different political forces are running for the post of Ukraine’s president.