UNITED NATIONS, October 29 (RIA Novosti) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday called for the cancellation of planned elections in southeastern Ukraine, his press service said.
"The Secretary-General deplores the planned holding by armed rebel groups in eastern Ukraine of their own 'elections' on 2 November, in breach of the constitution and national law," the statement said.
"These 'elections' will seriously undermine the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum, which need to be urgently implemented in full," the statement added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the upcoming elections in DPR and LPR would threaten the region’s peace process.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) have set the elections for their regional leaders and legislative bodies for November 2.
The DPR and the LPR want full independence for the whole territory within the borders of the respective administrative entities in Ukraine.
This claim for autonomy comes amid the crisis that escalated in Ukraine in mid-April, when Kiev launched a military operation against independence supporters in the country’s southeastern regions, who refused to recognize the new government, which came to power as a result of the February coup.
