Russian Lawmakers Criticize Ukrainian President

In a statement released today, the State Duma said it shared Ukrainian lawmakers' view that Yushchenko's April 2 decree to dissolve parliament and call new elections violates the country's constitution.

The Duma said the order sends "a most dangerous signal the situation may go beyond the framework of the law."

It also said Western governments and international institutions such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that judged Ukraine's parliamentary elections last year to have been free, fair and fully democratic must now stand up to Yushchenko's attempt to disband the legislature.

"We support the position of the Verkhnovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, that the [Ukrainian president's] decision to dissolve parliament was unconstitutional. There are simply no grounds for making such a decision today," State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov told reporters.

Ukraine's pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and his supporters in the legislature have refused to obey Yushchenko's order and have asked the Constitutional Court to rule on its legitimacy.

(Interfax, ITAR-TASS, AFP)