KIEV, March 30. /TASS/. More than 1,500 international observers have arrived in Ukraine to monitor the presidential election that will be held on March 31, Spokesman for Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Oleg Slobodyan told Ukraine’s UNN news agency.
"As many as 76 observers have arrived over the past 24 hours. Currently, there are more than 1,500 official observers from 40 countries in Ukraine," he said.
In all, Ukraine’s Central Election Commission registered 2,344 official observers from 19 international organizations and 17 countries, including the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), the European Parliament, the international organization Silba - Initiative for Dialogue and Democracy and the US-based National Democratic Institute.
Russian observers will not monitor the election. Ukraine’s Central Election Commission earlier refused to register 24 Russian OSCE/ODIHR members as short-term observers. Prior to that, the commission denied registration to two long-term observers from Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that refusal to register OSCE-endorsed observers who have Russian citizenship was illegitimate.
