Ukraine Day 882: LIVE UPDATES BELOW.
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict can be found here.
- READ OUR SPECIAL REPORT:
An Invasion By Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine
Elections were held yesterday in seven parliamentary seats, with around 50% of ballots counted so far.
UNIAN reports that 370 candidates stood in mid-term elections for seats which have been left vacant after MPs were stripped of their mandates, left parliament to take up administrative posts or died.
Ukrainska Pravda reported at 10:33 Kiev time that the Central Election Commission (CEC) stated that Ukrop’s Irina Konstankevich appears set to take the 23rd electoral district in the Volyn region, having received 53.57% of the 69.23% of votes counted so far.
Another member of Ukrop, Viktor Shevchenko, has 21.77% of the 53.61% of votes counted in the 85th district of the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Over 95% of votes in the 27th district of the Dnipropetrovsk region have been counted, with independent candidate Tatiana Rychkova, an volunteer and adviser to the Ministry of Defense, in the lead with 48.83%.
In Poltava’s 151st district, 36.57% of ballots have been counted. Batkivshchyna’s Ruslan Bohdan is currently in the lead, followed by an independent candidate, Mykola Bondar.
Yuriy Odarchenko, another Batkivshchyna candidate, is leading in the 183rd district in the Kherson region, with 25.99% of 55.14% votes counted.
In the 206th district of the Chernihiv region Maksim Mikitas, an independent, has 34.56% of 44.82% votes counted.
The lowest turnout was seen in the 114th district of the Lugansk region, part of which is occupied by Russian-backed forces. Of the 8.27% of votes counted, Nash Kray’s Sergei Shakhov was in the lead with 40.49%.
There have been allegations of electoral violations.
The Opora civil initiative reported the following:
- Frequent incidents of people being able to vote without presenting a passport (in all seven districts).
- Attempts to photograph ballot papers (in all seven districts).
- Presence of unauthorised persons in polling stations (in all seven districts).
- Attempts to hinder the work of public observers (in five electoral districts).
- Attempts to stuff ballot boxes (in two districts).
- Removal of ballot boxes from polling stations (in two districts).
The Ukrainian military reports 64 attacks by Russian-backed forces yesterday.
According to this morning’s ATO Press Center report, Russian-backed fighters used 120 and 82 mm mortars to shell Ukrainian positions outside Donetsk, Gorlovka and Mariupol, as well as Novozvanovka and Stariy Aidar in the Lugansk region.
Oleg Sushinsky, a spokesman for the ATO Press Center, told the 112 television channel this morning that Russian-backed fighters conducted another six attacks between midnight and 6:00 this morning. Sushinsky claimed that positions near Peski had been shelled with 122 mm artillery.
Dmytro Tymchuk, an MP and founder of the Information Resistance military analysis group, claimed that the government-controlled town of Krasnogorovka, west of Donetsk, was shelled by tanks.
Two civilians have been wounded in nearby Maryinka.
The Maryinka police report that a man and a woman both received shrapnel injuries in the early hours of this morning in the Donetsk suburb. They are now being treated in a hospital in Kurakhovo.
Donetsk news site 62.ua relayed photos of the scene:
Ukrainian forces reportedly shelled the outskirts of Donetsk.
The pro-separatist Donetsk News Agency reports that a civilian woman was wounded in the western Petrovsky district of the city last night.
Translation: Donetsk Petrovsky district. Nighttime impacts on 11 Nakhimovskaya Street
— Pierre Vaux