On Sunday, Ukraine managed to hold special presidential elections amid the unrest, and initial results suggest that the winner is pro-European Union billionaire Petro Poroshenko. The President, a candy tycoon, is known for supporting integration with Europe, and he has reiterated this time and again. The special election was needed after Yanukovych fled Kiev in February and it was imperative that a conclusive result came out of the elections, considering Putin refused to deal with the interim government, labeling it “an illegitimate regime”. Moscow has already announced that they have accepted the outcome of the election and are ready to hold dialogue with Poroshenko, but in return the Kiev government must end “extremist activities” in the east.
75% of the polling booths in the areas of unrest in the east were reportedly closed, and there were several reports of violence, with flights suspended to and from the Donetsk airport with gunmen storming the terminal building. Rumors of local Russian supporters in eastern towns threatening people to abstain from the polling were widespread. Establishing peace in the east already seems close to impossible for the new president, and the separatist rally held in Donetsk on Sunday reportedly had Russian ‘volunteers’ in the crowd chanting with the rest of the separatists. But the lack of information on the degree of Russian involvement makes it harder for the Kiev government to try and differentiate between the militias, the separatists, civilians and Russian operatives, to try and put an end to the hostility. A successful election was never going to lead to the restoration of Crimea, but the country now waits to see whether Poroshenko is the man who can put the $17 billion bailout of the IMF to good use. President Poroshenko, like many other Russian and Ukrainian billionaires gained his wealth through the mass privatisation of national assets after the fall of communist rule, but it is hoped that unlike all other oligarchs before him, in his tenure, starting things fresh will trump trying to preserve the fundamentally flawed status quo.