Ukraine’s incumbent President Pyotr Poroshenko cast his ballot in the country’s presidential election on Sunday.
Poroshenko arrived at a voting station in the Officers’ House in Kiev. “Today I voted for Ukraine and so did my entire family and the absolute majority of Ukrainians,” he said. “This voting is an absolutely necessary condition for our progress, for returning Ukraine into the family of European peoples and for our membership in the European Union and NATO, and continuing pressing reforms,” Poroshenko told reporters.
He voiced confidence that the election has been well-organized and nothing will disturb citizens from expressing their will.
In his turn, Poroshenko pledged to do his utmost to “turn Ukraine into a great country of free, prosperous and happy people.”
Earlier in the day, the Ukrainian leader recalled that on April 1 Ukraine’s Friendship Treaty with Russia would be terminated. He thanked Ukrainian lawmakers for supporting his initiative and voting in favor of the respective law in December 2018.
Russia and Ukraine signed the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership in May 1997. The document, which entered into force in April 1999 for a term of ten years, could be automatically extended for ten-year periods provided the parties did not object. The document enshrines strategic partnership between the two countries and mutual obligations not to use one’s territory to harm the other’s security, as well as recognizes the inviolability of existing borders.
In September 2018, Kiev officially notified Moscow that it would not extend the treaty.