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Campaigning Ends Ahead Of Key Ukraine Election


A woman passes a small truck with a preelection billboard with a portrait of Oleh Lyashko, the leader of Ukraine's populist Radical Party, in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, near Slovyansk, on October 23.
A woman passes a small truck with a preelection billboard with a portrait of Oleh Lyashko, the leader of Ukraine's populist Radical Party, in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, near Slovyansk, on October 23.

Campaigning has ended in Ukraine a day ahead of key parliamentary elections.

Polls show the party of President Petro Poroshenko with the highest support at 30 percent.

The United States has urged all Ukrainians to cast ballots, including those in rebel-controlled areas in Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, where pro-Russian rebels are vowing to hold their own seperate elections in November.

Voting will not take place in 14 districts of eastern Ukraine currently under the control of the separatists.

President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, has said Russia will recognize the election results, telling the Interfax news agency that Russia wants normality to return to Ukraine.

But Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has voiced fears the Kremlin could try to disrupt the vote.

Based on reporting by AP and Interfax

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