Russia likely to refrain from sending observers to Ukrainian election

World October 09, 2014, 20:00

No invitation has been received by the Russian side to send observers to Ukraine's parliamentary election

MOSCOW, October 9. /ITAR-TASS/. There is a big probability that Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, will not send its observers to the early parliamentary election in Ukraine, which is scheduled for October 26, the chairman of the Duma committee for the CIS and Eurasian integration, Leonid Slutsky told reporters on Thursday.

“There are no elementary grounds for observers’ work there now because the committee for the CIS hasn’t received an invitation to send observers either from the Ukrainian parliament or from the CIS Executive Committee,” Slutsky said.

“Most typically, such invitations are sent a month before voting at the latest but now slightly more than two weeks have been left,” he said.

If the invitations come, for instance, from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in the remaining weeks, Russian parliament will consider a possibility of delegating Duma deputies to the international missions for observing the parliamentary election in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dissolved Ukraine's parliament in late August in a move to clean the parliament from the allies of his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych and scheduled a snap parliamentary election for October 26.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said he hopes Ukraine's parliamentary election due on October 26 will help bring political stability to the war-torn country.

Putin warned Ukraine against discrimination on language, ethnic and religious grounds during the election.

The Russian president said this is the only way for Ukraine to preserve its territorial integrity and become united again, as well as to ensure the development in economic and social spheres. 

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