Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, and Emmanuel Macron, the President of France Le Monde

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin complained during the phone conversation with the President of France Emmanuel Macron about the ban on Russian observers to come to Ukrainian elections. The press service of Kremlin reports this.

“While exchanging the thoughts on Ukraine, Putin brought Macron’s attention to the active anti-Russian campaign by Ukrainian authorities on the coming Ukrainian elections. It is emphasized that the Ukrainian side decided not to include the Russian observers in the observing list and also refused from organizing polling stations in Russia, what contradicts to the general and democratic rules of OSCE,” the report said.

Besides, the parties agreed to pursue further work within “Normandy format,” the group of settling the conflict in Ukraine down, which is traditionally called in Russian Kremlin “internally Ukrainian conflict.”

As we reported earlier, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine prohibited observers from the Russian Federation to participate in the election process in Ukraine. Law #9524 was adopted by 232 votes.

It is established that a person, who is a citizen of a state aggressor and a person, whose offer is initiated or submitted by a state aggressor cannot be the observers at the elections (including the representatives of the foreign states).

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko stated he would issue an order to the State Border Guard Service not to let Russian observers to the presidential elections.

The election campaign has officially started on December 31, 2018. Registration of the candidates would last until February 4, 2019, and on February 9, the final list of presidential candidates will appear. The candidates would be able to withdraw his candidacy until March 7, 2019.