KIEV, Mar 31 (BBC): Polls have opened in Ukraine as the country votes in the first round of presidential elections.
Current leader Petro Poroshenko is seeking re-election but the surprise front-runner is comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Both candidates, along with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, have expressed largely pro-European views during campaigning.
None of the pro-Russian candidates are seen as serious contenders.
If no candidate gets more than 50 per cent on Sunday, the top two will fight it out in a second round on 21 April.
A total of 39 candidates are on the ballot paper, but only the three front-runners are considered to have any chance of victory.
The Ukrainian president has significant powers over security, defence and foreign policy and the ex-Soviet republic's system is described as semi-presidential.
Mr Poroshenko, one of Ukraine's wealthiest oligarchs, was elected in a snap vote after former pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled in the February 2014 Maidan Revolution, which was followed by Russia's annexation of Crimea and a Russian-backed insurgency in the east.
The next president will inherit a deadlocked conflict between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed separatists in the east, while Ukraine strives to fulfil EU requirements for closer economic ties.
The EU says that about 12 per cent of Ukraine's 44 million people are disenfranchised, largely those who live in Russia and in Crimea, which Russia annexed in March 2014.
Separatist-controlled areas are boycotting the election.
Mr Zelenskiy, 41, is aiming to turn his satirical TV show - in which he portrays an ordinary citizen who becomes president after fighting corruption - into reality.
