SLOVAKIA does not recognise the self-proclaimed republics founded in eastern Ukraine, does not consider the November 2 elections legitimate, and sent no observers to monitor them, the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said on November 5. The statement came as a response to information about one Slovak, who attended the elections in Donetsk region as an observer.
“We consider the decision of separatists to hold these so-called elections a violation of the Minsk agreements and counterproductive in efforts to solve the situation in south-eastern Ukraine,” the ministry claimed, as quoted by the SITA newswire. “In this respect, Ukraine issued a statement where it claims that people who attended this arbitrary act as so-called observers violated Ukrainian legislation and will be held responsible.”
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry published a list of 18 foreigners who attended the November 2 elections in eastern Ukraine as observers on November 3. It criticised their action and labeled it “[participation in] illegal processes at the territories controlled by gangs and foreign mercenaries”, and sent the information to Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), as reported by SITA.
The Ukrainian ministry also said that these people will be enlisted as undesired people, and that it will send information about their “illegal activity” to their home countries.
The list includes one Slovak, and also citizens from Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Austria, Serbia, Italy and the US. The Slovak was identified as Viliam Longauer, the secretary of the Slovak Association of Fighters against Fascism, who, according to Kiev, is cooperating closely with the Russian government, which is suspected of supporting the separatists in eastern Ukraine, SITA wrote.
According to the Czech website iDnes.cz, the group of observers allegedly arrived in eastern Ukraine as representatives of the Agency for Security and Cooperation in Europe, established on the eve of the elections. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) refused to send the observers to the regions. The Czech website reports they probably made it to Ukraine illegally via one of the border crossings controlled by separatists.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
