Direct flights between Russian Federation and Ukraine stopped

“The election must be delayed because a few of the ballots had serious problems”, said Natalya Kachtchi, a member of the local electoral commission.

Many are taking today’s elections, and the ones to be held in the coming weeks, as a referendum on President Poroshenko’s rule and the Minsk agreements. Tymoshenko, whose confidence rating has risen to 25 percent from 17 percent previous year, is the only key figure whose approval has gone up. As of September 2015, 38 percent of Ukrainians viewed Poroshenko very unfavorably, while 59 percent saw Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in this way. Allies of the deposed Viktor Yanukovych are bidding to make a comeback.

Voters will elect mayors and other local officials who will get more taxing and spending authority as the nation decentralizes power. The Self-Reliance party (Samopomich) and the Opposition Bloc each at polled less than 8 percent.

Former 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution leader and ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko is demanding a “professional army and fair tariffs”.

The fiery and divisive political survivor is expected to do better than her Fatherland party’s disappointing sixth place showing in last year’s parliamentary vote.

Ukraine still hopes Russian Federation will decide to take part in a critical debt swap by next week’s deadline, after Moscow declined to participate in voting to approve the plan last week, Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalia Yaresko said on Friday. However, Ukrainians are also deeply alienated from national politics and frustrated by a lack of tangible progress on reforms and a lack of information about the ongoing reform process.

Meanwhile, in Odesa, reformists are battling to oust incumbent Mayor Hennady Trukhanov in what is seen as a direct challenge to Ukraine’s oligarchic elite. With far-right movements financed by oligarchs gaining ground, the main tone of the campaign has become whether or not President Poroshenko is governing sufficiently to the right.

Altogether, there are more than 130 political parties that have candidates in the different elections around the country.

Here’s the top facts selected by the Kyiv Post about the upcoming elections.

However, change could come slowly because devolution includes demands for greater autonomy in the east.

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian government banned Russian carriers from either serving its territory or transiting its airspace in retaliation for their continued service to what Kiev terms “temporarily occupied Crimea and restricted areas”.

Polling stations opened across all Kiev-administered regions accept for Mariupol – a south-eastern city of almost 500,000 that provides a land bridge between pro-Moscow rebel regions and Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula. “The sanctions [against Russia] are linked to the implementation of the Minsk agreement, which is something we have always said”.