Ayotte: Turnout high in Ukraine election

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) on Sunday said turnout is high for Ukraine’s presidential election. 

Ayotte, who is in the country with other U.S. lawmakers to monitor the elections, said pro-Russian separatists, as expected, have disrupted a few regions in eastern Ukraine. 

{mosads}”What we’ve seen is high turnout throughout Ukraine. Obviously Donetsk, Luhansk, the security situation there is preventing many people from voting in those two regions,” she said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding there are no election observers in those two regions. 

In other parts of the country, “what you see here is pushback on that Russian aggression.”

“There is one person to blame for that security situation,” she said. “And that it is [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.”

Billionaire Petro Poroshenko is expected to win the presidential election. Ayotte said she met with him on Saturday, where he expressed his desire for increased military support from the United States and his intention not accept the annexation of Crimea that took place earlier this year.