Новости за 25.10.2015

An uninspiring election campaign contributed to an expected low voter turnout as Kyivans on Oct. 25 voted to elect a mayor and members of the 120-seat Kyiv City Council.

ODESA, Ukraine - Local elections in the Black Sea port of Odesa on Oct. 25 were marred by accusations of voting fraud and a low turnout.

In few other places does the impact of today’s local elections have so obviously an impact on geopolitics as in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine that gained strategic significance as the closest neighbor to Russian annexed Crimea.

Hundreds of thousands of Kyivans made it to polling stations on Oct. 25 to choose Kyiv mayor and elect the members of 120-seat Kyiv City Council.

MARIUPOL, Ukraine -- There were many angry shouts heard in eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol on Election Day.

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has criticized the decision made by the Ukrainian authorities to discontinue flights between Russia and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has not registered any serious mass violations related to the electoral process so far.

KRASNOARMIYSK, Ukraine – A local court in Donetsk Oblast's Krasnoarmiysk, just 30 miles west of Russian-controlled Donetsk, ruled that local election authorities have illegally printed ballets. The court ordered polling stations closed in the city of 65,000 people.

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine has ordered Krasnoarmiysk town election commission to hand over the ballots to precinct election commissions immediately and to hold the elections in Krasnoarmiysk.

Voting in local elections in Ukraine is fairly calm, and goes without major violations, an observer from the European Parliament, the Head of EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, Andrej Plenkovic, has said.

MOSCOW - Members of the trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine will meet in the Belarusian capital Minsk on October 27 to continue discussing the conditions for holding the local elections in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the terms of international humanitarian aid access to these districts, a source in the group organizing the talks told Interfax.

Local elections in two areas in the disputed Donetsk region of Ukraine have been cancelled.

Direct flights between Ukraine and Russia have been grounded as new sanctions initiated by Kyiv came into effect.

Ukrainians voted Sunday in local elections that will test support for the country's pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko, who is under pressure over a deep economic contraction and perceived lack of progress fighting corruption.

The former Ukrainian president and Kyiv's representative to the trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, is hopeful that the situation in Ukraine will improve after the local elections, but says that it is difficult to offer any forecasts today.

Mariupol's territorial election commission may still be able to arrange the voting process as part of Ukraine's local elections on Sunday, Ukrainian Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Mykhailo Okhendovsky has said, adding that polling stations in the city may still open, albeit with major delays.

One serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been wounded in Donetsk region over the past 24 hours, Kyiv has reported.

Ukrainian Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Mykhailo Okhendovsky has confirmed the absence of any reasons not to forward the printed ballot papers to local election commissions in Krasnoarmiysk, Donetsk region, in the course of the day.

Ukrainians are voting in local elections seen as a survival test for pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko's fragile ruling coalition amid the country's deep economic crisis and ongoing conflict in the east.

Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has said quoting the local authorities that the turnout in the local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk regions as of 12.00 was more than 11%.

The situation surrounding the local elections in the city of Mariupol, Donetsk region, is unacceptable, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said, asking law enforcement agencies to investigate it.

HORLIVKA - The Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE SMM) has announced that up to 20 people will work at its new office in the town of Horlivka, eastern Ukraine.

The polling stations in Ukraine's south-eastern town of Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, failed to open, as the majority of town's elections commission's members refused to accept the ballots finding mistakes in some of them.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's ruling coalition faces a test of its record so far in local elections.

On Saturday night, militants opened fire on the position of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of Donetsk airport and the village of Pisky, Yasynuvata district, Donetsk region, of which the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has been notified, head of the Ukrainian part of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of ceasefire in Donbas Borys Kremenetsky has said in a statement.