From "End Of The Orange-Blue Divide: Ukraine Vote May Produce New Political Landscape" by RFE/RL's Robert Coalson:
When Ukrainians go to the polls on October 26, they seem poised to introduce a new political configuration for the country. And, at the same time, to shatter the old paradigm of a country hopelessly divided between a pro-European west and a Russia-leaning east.
The end of the old Orange-Blue divide is largely the result of the violent separatist conflict raging in Ukraine's east.
"These divisions have been diminished by this war and by the perception among many Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who would have had a positive opinion of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin a year ago, that this war is actually directed and supported by Russia," says Andreas Umland, a professor at Kyiv's Mohyla Academy. "Even many ethnic Russians who are Ukrainian citizens are now becoming Ukrainian patriots in the full sense of the word."
Read the full article here.
Barring any major developments, that ends the live blogging for today.
Campaigning in Ukraine has ended ahead of Sunday's vote:
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. (AP, Interfax)
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) says it has "destroyed an anti-Ukrainian plan on derailing elections and destabilization of the situation in Ukraine," according to chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko:
“Today we can state that the anti-Ukrainian plan on derailing elections and destabilization of situation in Ukraine is destroyed”, - stressed the Head of the SSU. According to him, for today “all tools of the backstairs politics, prepared and used by the RF special services and terrorists of LPR’s and DPR’s illegal paramilitary formations are neutralized”. “The debris of the army, who are hiding from us with explosives and weapons, will be detained and neutralized”, - assured the Head of the SSU.
Nalyvaichenko informed that within the frame of the preparation for the elections the Security Service carries out protection of the Central Electoral Commission’ s electronic recourses, Vybory (election) system and its regional divisions: “Functioning of servers and communication equipment for the election are under our protection at the moment – by all available state-of-the-art capabilities.”
The SSU Head mentioned that the SSU, MIA and GPO were entrusted by the President of Ukraine to conduct an important mission related to the protection of the voting premises, district electoral commissions and the Central Electoral Commission. At the same time the best SSU officers ensure transportation of the ballot papers – in Donetskl and Luhansk regions primarily.
The third aspect of the work, according to Nalyvaichenko, - the direct prevention of abuse of power during the elections, bribery of voters and NGOs together with the missions of international observers. “Starting today both the SSU Headquarters and its regional offices will not only work day and night, but also receive citizens jointly with the representatives of the NGOs. We receive statements about any incidents of abuse of power or attempts to interfere into the process of declaration of the will and assure you – none will abandon the investigation of the criminal proceedings,” – said Nalyvaichenko. He has also warned the heads of the electoral commissions that the SSU will overstrictly react to any attempts to tamper with election or gerrymander the election.
Here is today's map of the military situation in the east, courtesy of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council:
Kent Harstedt, Swedish lawmaker and head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) temporary election observation mission to Ukraine, told journalists in Kyiv:
"This is an extraordinary election in many ways. What we are seeing here in Ukraine right now is that they are going for a parliamentary election where part of the country is illegally annexed by Russia, we have part of the country where there's a war-like situation. But we have also a situation where we have hundreds of thousands of IDPs [internally displaced persons] inside the country, and only that issue is a huge challenge for the administration here."
"There's so many challenges. I would say that security is one [of these challenges]. Another one is actually to mobilize voters to actually go and vote. Third one is to see to that those who are campaigning and are candidates, that they are not intimidated. And, then it's the pure administrative issue of be able to carry out voting both for all of those IDPs, but also in areas which are semi-secure."
"We see in facing up to this election more concerning reports - both against candidates [in] the elections, but we are also concerned about reports that there might be violence either directed directly to polling stations or in the vicinity of the polling stations."