LUGANSK (Sputnik) – Local elections in eastern Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) have been postponed from April 24 to July 24 of 2016, according to a decree by LPR leader Igor Plotnitsky posted on his official website on Tuesday.
“To postpone the day of first elections of the local heads in designated territories…from April 24, 2016, to July 24, 2016," the decree says.
The decree comes into effect upon publication. Ukraine's southeast has been engulfed in a military conflict since April 2014, when Kiev launched a military operation to suppress Donbass residents who expressed their dissatisfaction with the country's coup-imposed government.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics were established in Ukraine's Donbass after the May 2014 independence referendums.
The Minsk peace deal, reached in February 2015 between the conflicting sides, included a truce, prisoner swaps and constitutional changes in Ukraine.
