Ukraine’s Prime Minister warned yesterday of possible attempts by Russia to disrupt an election in Ukraine at the weekend, a vote being held against a background of Russian support for separatist rebels and an unresolved row over gas.
Sunday’s poll is the first parliamentary election since street protests last winter drove Moscow-backed leader Victor Yanukovych from office and ushered in a pro-Western leadership.
The results are expected to turn a political bloc supporting President Petro Poroshenko into the leading force in Parliament, where pro-Russian influence will be greatly diminished
Poroshenko is seeking a mandate to press ahead with a plan for ending the conflict with separatists in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern regions and establishing an understanding with Moscow while pursuing a course of European integration.
Interfax news agency quoted him as saying yesterday that he expected to be able to begin forming a new coalition by early next week that would be “pro-European, anti-corruption, without liars and populists.”
Western governments supported the “Euromaidan” winter protests in Kiev that forced Yanukovych to flee to Russia, but Moscow denounced his overthrow as a coup. Russia went on to annex Crimea and back separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 3,700 people. With violence between government forces and separatists still simmering in eastern Ukraine despite a ceasefire, PM Arsenic Yatseniuk, a hawk in the Kiev leadership, ordered a full security mobilisation for the weekend to prevent “terrorist acts” being carried out.
“It is clear that attempts to destabilise the situation will continue and be provoked by the Russian side. They did not succeed during the presidential election in May ... but their plans have remained,” he told a meeting of top security chiefs and election monitors.
“We need ... full mobilisation of the whole law-enforcement system to prevent violations of the election process and any attempts at terrorist acts during the elections,” Yatseniuk said.
“Realistically, we are in a state of Russian aggression and we have before us one more challenge – to hold parliamentary elections ... The choice of voters will be made by the ballot-paper and an honest expression of will and not automatic weapons,” Yatseniuk said. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow to his charges. But Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Russia hoped the election would be held in accordance with “democratic principles and norms” and that “a process of gradual political stabilisation” of Ukraine would follow, RIA news agency reported.
Lukashevich said Russians would take part in monitoring the vote as part of an observer mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Speaking separately, the Kremlin’s chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, said Moscow would recognise the results of Ukraine’s election but, in comments certain to upset Kiev, he also endorsed a rival vote the separatists plan to hold on November 2.
An unresolved row over gas between Ukraine and Russia, its main energy supplier, is further testing relations and raising concern among EU countries. Many of them rely on Russian gas via Ukraine and worry the dispute could affect supplies to them this winter.