Former foreign minister Ilkka Kanerva joins an Organisation for Co-operation and Security in Europe (OSCE) delegation to Ukraine on Wednesday. The group is meeting Ukrainian government and security figures ahead of the deployment of an observer mission across the country over the next six months.
During the four-day visit the high-level delegation will aim to clarify conditions relating to the upcoming elections and media freedom in the country. The head of a Ukrainian television station was recently beaten and forced to resign by a group including far-right MPs.
Kanerva, who is the longest-serving MP in Finland's Parliament, was elected in 2013 to serve as a vice-president of the OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly. He resigned from government in 2008 after less than a year as foreign minister.