Donetsk People's Republic Postpones Local Elections to July 24

The leader of the Donetsk People's Republics signed a decree postponing the elections of the local heads from April 20 to July 24.

DONETSK (Sputnik) – Local elections in eastern Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic have been postponed from April 20 to July 24 of this year, the DPR Administration said Tuesday.

In October, Ukraine's regions of Donetsk and Lugansk agreed to postpone their local elections until 2016. The DPR's elections were initially scheduled for April 20.

“The head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, has signed a decree on postponing the elections of the local heads. In line with the document, the day for holding local elections is moved from April 20, 2016, to July 24, 2016,” the administration said.

Ukraine's southeast has been engulfed in a military conflict since April 2014, when Kiev launched a military operation to suppress Donbass residents who expressed their dissatisfaction with the country's coup-imposed government.

The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics were established in Ukraine's southeast after the May 2014 independence referendums.

The Minsk peace deal, reached in February 2015 between the conflicting sides, included a truce, prisoner swaps and constitutional changes in Ukraine.