The issue of elections in the occupied Donbas territories is being resolved

The issue of holding the elections in the occupied Donbas territories simultaneously with the local elections throughout Ukraine has not been resolved yet. This was stated by the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Serhiy Trofimov.

According to him, local elections will be held in autumn 2020 as it was scheduled before. Besides, Trofimov noted that their carrying out could be hindered only by “some general force majeure that we do not know about”.

Recently, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Alexei Reznikov noted that the local elections in the occupied Donbas territories can be held only in case of security requirements fulfillment, and for this purpose the Russian military forces must be withdrawn from the uncontrolled territories and disarmed already in August.

“Today we are talking, that according to the Constitution of Ukraine the regular local elections are to take place on the third Sunday in October. Correspondingly, the planned pre-election campaign should be started in advance, i.e. in August. If we give a сue to the world community, to our partners today, that we are really ready to restore peace on Ukrainian soil, to restore our territorial integrity, we announce that we are prepared to hold elections, including elections in certain territories in Lugansk and Donetsk regions providing the fulfillment of the Minsk conditions, first of all, security conditions”, the minister emphasized.

According to him, in order to accomplish Steinmeier’s formula, a mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions for Human Rights, which has a mandate to monitor elections, must arrive in Ukraine. But this is possible only in the case of security guarantees for observers.