Ukrainian servicemen who are registered close to the places where they serve in the Donbas region were able to vote during the local elections, according to the press center for Ukraine's antiterrorist operation (ATO), which is what Kyiv calls its campaign against separatists in the east.
"The day passed without any attacks in the ATO zone," the statement reads.
Ukrainian personnel continue to man their positions and are preparing their equipment and weapons for winter.
Here is a map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone (courtesy of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, dated October 24). No elections are being held today in the separatist-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine (click image to enlarge):
Here's an important update on the situation in Mariupol:
The head of the Donetsk Military and Civil Administration, Pavlo Zhebrivskyy, has said at a press briefing that elections in Mariupol won't take place today, according to local news website 0629.com.ua.
"Either the elections in Mariupol will take place on November 15 along with the second round of mayoral elections, or within the next 10 days the Central Electoral Committee will decide to declare the Mariupol elections invalid. Then the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] would have to arrange new elections within 60 days, meaning, they would be held by January," Zhebrivskyy said.
Zhebrivskyy blamed the Central Election Commission for the breakdown of the election process in Mariupol, because it didn't manage the situation with ballot printing properly.
Ukraine's Interior Ministry has received 470 reports of procedural violations in today's elections, 54 of which were about bribing voters, according to Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Yarovyy, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
"In [Kyiv] there were 15 reports about bribing, nine in Poltava Oblast, eight in Zakarpatska Oblast, six in Odesa Oblast, four in Chernihiv Oblast, two in each Donetsk, Kyiv and Cherkasy Oblasts," Yarovyy said.
Yarovyy also said there were two bomb threats at polling stations in the Luhansk and Khmelnytskyy oblasts and there were also reports of voters damaging ballots.
Altogether, 102,000 law enforcement officers are providing security at polling stations across Ukraine.
Election observers have a special designated area at a polling station in the western city of Rivne.
The most common violation of the voting process in Odesa is disregarding the secrecy of the ballot. Such violations have been recorded at almost 9 percent of polling stations, Ukraine's Committee of Voters reports.
This video posted on YouTube shows some Odesa locals seemingly filling in their ballot forms on a window sill, even though the law states that voting may only take place in a voting booth.
Odesa law-enforcement officers have detained a bus with 34 men and their coordinator for bribing voters, according to the official Twitter account of the Ukrainian police.