Early exit polls showed that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has suffered a setback in Sunday’s local elections, while his pro-Russian and pro-European rivals are leading in most of the country’s major cities.

In nine major cities and regional centres across the country where the polls were held, no presidential party candidate was elected mayor -- not even in Zelensky’s hometown.

His party Servant of the People won the elections to municipal councils in two large cities in the centre of Ukraine, but in the other seven it most often placed third or fourth, according to two polls.