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Ukraine goes to the polls

UKRAINIANS went to vote in parliamentary elections today — though the Communist Party was barred from participating, having been outlawed by the Interior Ministry under former president Petro Poroshenko.

Polls suggested that the Servant of the People party led by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is likely to come first. It takes its name from the comedy series in which Mr Zelenskiy played a teacher who becomes president and which brought him national fame.

Second place looked likely to go to For Life, a party headed by oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who has close links to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president is godfather to Mr Medvedchuk’s daughter.

Following the collapse of former president Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, which dominated the mostly Russian-speaking eastern half of the country before the Maidan coup overthrew him in 2014, Mr Medvedchuk’s political vehicle looks set to hoover up many eastern votes.

A doctor voting for him in Kiev told Associated Press: “Half the country speaks Russian, but neither the old nor the new authorities listen to us. Why should we have the EU and Nato if the war doesn’t stop and we keep getting poorer?”

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