According to Iryna Heraschenko, the visit of the European Parliament members had been prepared since May 2016. The European Parliament members themselves expressed desire to visit not only Kyiv, but also some population centers in the east of Ukraine. However, according to Iryna Heraschenko, the President of the European Parliament and all heads of political groups and factions decided to limit the official program of the visit European MPs to Ukraine only with Kyiv for security reasons.
Iryna Heraschenko noted that nevertheless three European MPs decided to go to the east of Ukraine to see the situation in Donbas firsthand: Rebecca Harms, Michal Boni and Jaromir Stetina.
Heraschenko said that the delegation started its trip to Donbas from the city of Dnipro.
Taking into consideration the fact of limitation of the delegation's program only with Kyiv, Iryna Heraschenko noted: "We do have lots of questions to our European colleagues: how can you insist on holding elections on the territories, where your employees are prohibited to stay for more than an hour? How then will observers stay there… I do even mention the work and security of the polling stations… and, by the way, did not the Russian Federation guaranteed the ceasefire regime… There are thousands of Ukrainians living there, who will take care of their security?… We obviously see the fact of double standards here and thus, we will raise this question at each and every international meeting."
Within the framework of their trip, the Ukrainian parliamentarians and representatives of the European Parliament visited checkpoints in Mariyinka, the town of Kramatorsk and other population centers.