‘European Solidarity’ leader and former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko supported calls  the Verkhovna Rada should not recognize  the Russian parliamentary elections after Moscow opened its polling stations in occupied Crimea.

Poroshenko urged Ukrainian MPs to open a probe into Russia’s  electoral  stunt in Donbas that saw ‘over 200 thousand Ukrainian citizens  dragged into it through electronic vote’.

He also called into question inconsistent response of Ukrainian officials to the ‘illegal elections’.

‘All of a sudden, the President’s Office, government and other representatives of ‘Servant of the People’ have authorized voting [in Russian elections] at consulates and diplomatic missions in Ukraine. How are you going then to call on international community not to recognize these elections, if you, by you own orders,  authorize it? It is a classical illustration of ‘Servant of the People’ approach [entertaining] people with ‘little videos’ and [at the same time] doing unacceptable things.’

Polling stations were opened in Russia’s Embassy in Kyiv and consulates in Lviv, Odesa, and Kharkiv.