Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright praised Ukraine's presidential held Sunday, calling it a "good beginning" for the country that has been wracked by turmoil over the past several months.

Albright led a delegation of election observers from the National Democratic Institute, where she is chairman.

In an interview Monday with ABC News, she said Sunday's voting went "extremely well" and that it a step toward "restoring the dignity of the Ukrainian people."

The presumptive winner is candy mogul Petro Poroshenko who won outright in the first round, according to exit polls. In a victory speech, Poroshenko vowed to stamp out the pro-Russian separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine and move the country toward Europe.

"He has a hard job, there's no question about it," Albright said of Poroshenko. "In my meeting with him I had the sense that he understood what had to be done, that he had the energy to do it. That he was pretty determined about it."