[14] Petro Poroshenko won the presidency and served a full presidential term until 2019, losing to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

[17] On 11 October 2011, a Ukrainian court found Tymoshenko guilty of abuse of power, sentenced her to seven years in jail and banned her from seeking elected office for her period of imprisonment.

[21][22] Tymoshenko remained in prison until 22 February 2014, after parliament voted for her release and removal of her criminal record, allowing her to compete for elected office once again.

[10] In May 2013 Batkivshchyna, UDAR, and Svoboda vowed to coordinate their actions during the presidential campaign, and promised "to support the candidate from among these parties who wins a place in the run-off election".

[25] Under Ukrainian law a presidential candidate must have had his residence in Ukraine for the past ten years prior to election day.

[27] Former President Viktor Yanukovych, prior to his dismissal and subsequent flight from the country (see below), was considered likely to run for his second and final term.

[32] On 19 December 2013, Yanukovych alluded to not participating when he stated "If, theoretically speaking, my rating is low and has no prospects, I won't hinder the country's development and movement ahead".

[42] During the 2014 Crimean crisis and Russian military intervention, Ukraine lost control over the Crimea, which was unilaterally annexed by Russia in March 2014.

[45] Serhiy Taruta, governor of Donetsk, has suggested a referendum, to be held on 15 June, at the same time as the potential second round of the election.

[50] The Committee of Voters of Ukraine predicted on 23 May that, due to "ongoing acts of terrorism and armed insurgency", 10% of the Ukrainian population would be unable to vote.

[51][g] On the same day, the leader of the Luhansk People's Republic advised citizens not to go to the polls to vote, warning of possible provocative "explosions" set by Ukrainian military.

[53][54] Initially Russia opposed rescheduling the election because the Russian government considered the removal of then President Viktor Yanukovych illegal and his temporary successors an "illegitimate junta".

However, unlike previous sanctions which were limited to individuals and companies, the third stage is set to target entire sectors of the Russian economy.

[70] The Central Election Commission was unable to remove from the ballot the names of candidates who withdrew from the race after the deadline of 1 May 2014.

It refused to register O. Burnashova, V. Marynych, A. Makhlai, A. Kucheryavenko, V. Chopei, L. Rozhnova, L. Maksymenko, D. Myroshnychenko, P. Rekal, T. Onopriyuk, and Z.

[84][85][86][87][88] On 3 April 2014 the CEC rejected a further three candidates: a man named Darth Vader, Evhen Terekhov, and Yuriy Ivanitsky.

[95] On 9 May 2014 U.S. Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland stated her country would support 255 long-term and more than 3,300 short-term observers.

[97] Other Commonwealth of Independent States members also did not send observers; because Ukraine had not sent an invitation to the CIS Election Monitoring Organisation.

[13] Exit polls had also predicted that Poroshenko won the election outright[99] with over 55.9% of the votes,[13] Despite Russia's earlier protest at rescheduling the election and the general tense relation between the countries at the time because of the annexation of Crimea and the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised the vote.