Updated 1:49 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – Russia prepares to send its monitors to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said in an interview with RIA Novosti on Wednesday.
"We have quotas not only for parliamentarians, but also for the Central Election Commission and the Foreign Ministry. We are now conducting preparations to send two Russian observers to join the long-term OSCE ODIHR [OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights] mission," he said.
Early parliamentary elections in Ukraine are scheduled for October 26.
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's head lkka Kanerva said earlier the organization had invited Russia to join international observers at the Ukrainian parliamentary elections.
Kanerva refrained from saying how many observers were to go to Ukraine for the long-term and short-term missions, but added their numbers were sure to be significant. He estimated the overall number at "about a thousand."
On Tuesday, PACE rapporteur on Ukraine Marietta de Pourbaix-Lundin told RIA Novosti that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was also going to dispatch its observer team to the upcoming Ukrainian polls.
