Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Monday that Ukraine would get a "legitimate" president after next weekend`s election despite some expected voting problems in the east.
Election commission officials have warned that security concerns may make it difficult if not impossible to stage Sunday`s poll in parts of rebel-held areas in the eastern industrial belt.
"In certain districts (in the east) it will be difficult to organise the election," Yatsenyuk acknowledged during a meeting with regional governors.
"But it affects very few areas and will not have any influence on voting. The election will take place and we will have a legitimate president."
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said "special groups" would be tasked with organising polling in the east, without elaborating.
Sunday`s vote is seen as crucial if Ukraine is to find a way out of a crisis that threatens the country`s very existence after Russia annexed Crimea and pro-Moscow rebels took up arms in the east against Kiev`s rule.
The United Nations says over 120 people have been killed in fighting since the Ukraine government launched an offensive against the separatists last month.
Sunday`s vote was called in February after the ouster of Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in the wake of months of sometimes bloody pro-EU protests.
Billionaire chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko is the front-runner in opinion polls which give him around 34 percent of the vote, far ahead of former prime minister and Orange Revolution heroine Yulia Tymoshenko on about six percent.
