Chairman of the Russian Federation Council's (upper house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev called on members of the European Parliament to monitor further actions of Kiev due to the possible cancellation of the upcoming presidential elections, set to take place in spring 2019.

Axar.az reports citing TASS.

"I am not sure that the presidential elections [in Ukraine] planned for March will take place as scheduled. We suspect that Mr. [Ukrainian President Pyotr] Poroshenko is doing everything to avoid holding these elections, or to hold them only in territories where he has support that is more considerable. We will monitor it closely. And we would like the European Parliament to monitor it as closely," Kosachev said on Tuesday during a meeting with an MP of the European Parliament.

He noted that the Kerch Strait incident "has elicited a lot of emotions in European countries." "I regret to state for the most part, these emotions are based on a very superficial perception of the situation and on the desire to deliberately take sides in this argument, to support Ukraine’s position and to stand against the Russian one," the Russian senator said.

"Such a unilateral reaction, concealment of Ukraine’s actions and immediate criticism of Russia, regardless of what is happening in reality, is in fact a signal for such provocations to continue and become more belligerent and dangerous," Kosachev added.

"We are definitely not interested in raising tensions, be it military, economic, or political tensions, in the relations with Ukraine. However, Ukraine is currently being held prisoner to its own election campaign," the Russian senator noted, adding that a similar situation can be witnessed currently in the European Parliament, with the elections planned for May.