Attacks on opposition candidates are just one sign of the increasing polarization of Ukrainian society. Thousands of people have died in clashes in the east of the country between pro-Russian separatists on one side and government forces and militias on the other. Human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported abuses that may amount to war crimes on both sides.

Russian president Vladimir Putin continues to deny that he has any influence the separatists in eastern Ukraine. They have called for a boycott of Sunday’s election in the regions they control and say they will hold their own election in early November. According to a report in the news magazine Der Spiegel Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, recently presented evidence to a parliamentary committee that pro-Russian rebels shot down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in July.

Despite the tensions between Kiev and Moscow talks between the two sides are continuing under the aegis of the European Union. Winter is approaching and Ukraine is highly dependent on supplies of gas from Russia.

Is this weekend’s election a first step toward stability in the civil war-torn country? Will a stable government in Kiev help reduce tensions with Russia? Or will it further polarize Ukrainian society? Should the west step up its support for Ukraine?

Tell us what you think. Send an email to quadriga(at)dw.de
Ukraine Election - Step toward Stability?

Our guests:

Inna Melnykovska - is a political scientist and economist, originally from Ukraine. Currently, she is based at the Free University Berlin. Previously, she worked as a research fellow at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and at the University of Giessen. Her research focuses on political and economic processes in Ukraine and on the EU’s and Russia’s influences thereon. Her current book project is about the integration of Ukrainian and Russian big business into the global markets and its effects on domestic politics in Ukraine and Russia.

Lucian Kim – The US-american journalist has extensively reported from Ukraine. Mr. Kim has been covering Eastern Europe since the early 1990s. He was the Berlin correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor from 1996 to 2002, before he moved to Russia in 2003. There he worked as an editor for The Moscow Times and a correspondent for Bloomberg News, covering energy giant Gazprom and the Putin government. In 2011, he started a blog chronicling the Moscow protest movement on his website, luciankim.com.

Burkhard Birke – studied economics at university and has been a journalist since 1982. Birke became the Washington correspondent for the German public broadcaster ARD in 1988. After that, he served as a correspondent for the public radio network Deutschlandradio from Brussels, London and Paris. Today he is based in the broadcaster’s Berlin bureau.