KYIV. Oct 2 (Interfax) - Elections in Donbas will not be held if the military is there, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"We will prepare all safeguards. You and I will never agree to hold elections if the military is present there," Zelensky said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.
Elections cannot be held in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions "at the barrel of machineguns" and they should be held in line with Ukrainian legislation, the Ukrainian head of state said.
The withdrawal of troops should be discussed in the Normandy format, he added.
"If some troops are deployed there [in certain Donbas regions], elections cannot be held," the Ukrainian head of state said.
The president pledged that by the time when elections will be held in Donbas, these territories will already no longer be outside Kyiv's control.
"If we want these elections to be held in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, we understand that there cannot be any machineguns, and the border should be ours," Zelensky said.