East Ukrainians head to polls with hopes of lasting peace

Residents of two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine went to the polls Sunday, with exit polls suggesting they had elected the military men already leading them to be “prime ministers” of their unrecognized statelets. Many of those who voted said they were doing so in the hopes that the military men would now seek to make a lasting peace.

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That may not get that. Large and unmarked military convoys transporting ammunition, anti-aircraft guns and Grad rocket launchers arrived in Donetsk on Saturday and Sunday, sparking rumours that the separatist militias – who allegedly get military support from Moscow – were planning a new offensive following the vote.

The Ukrainian government, which slammed the elections in Donetsk and Lugansk as “phoney” complained Friday of “intensive” military moves “from the territory of the Russian Federation.”

There were long lines at polling stations Sunday – some perhaps lured by the cheap groceries on sale outside – as residents of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic voted for the second time in just over six months. But while the mood in a May referendum was one of anger and defiance – when a large majority in this Russian-speaking region voting to declare independence from Kyiv following a pro-Western revolution there – Sunday’s vote was tinged with sadness and fatigue at the war that has since killed more than 4,000 people.

“We want to live without being shelled and spending five months without receiving a pension,” said Nadezhda Ivanova, a 65-year-old who before the war ran a small grocery store near Donetsk’s shattered airport, the scene of fierce daily fighting between the Ukrainian army and the Moscow-backed separatists. Ms. Ivanova, who voted for Alexandr Zakharchenko, who was already the acting prime minister and military leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, said she had no idea what condition her store was in today, since she was afraid to go near that part of the city.

An exit poll released late Sunday showed Mr. Zakharchenko winning easily against two opponents with 81 per cent of the vote. In adjacent Lugansk, military commander Igor Plotnitskiy was similarly expected to retain the prime minister’s post against his three competitors. Official results were expected Monday.

None of those running against Mr. Zakharchenko or Mr. Plotnitskiy offered a program that suggested reunion with Kyiv, but election billboards around the region promised of peace and economic development, rather than further military conquests.

“The most important thing is peace. Everything else can come after,” said 65-year-old Tamara Krupnitskaya, who works as a cleaner in a psychiatrist’s office. She cast her ballot for Mr. Zakharchenko in a neighbourhood of south Donetsk where several homes have been destroyed by stray artillery shells and rockets.

A large share of the voters were pension-age, like Ms. Ivanova and Ms. Krupnitskaya. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the Donetsk and Lugansk regions since the fighting began in April. “A lot of the young people have left because the situation – a lot of the students and the people with young children,” said Ms. Ivanova explained.

While the centre of Donetsk has been so far relatively unscathed, voters’ hopes for peace were at odds with the gunfire and explosions that could be heard coming from the direction of the airport throughout the weekend.

Other than the airport siege – where Ukrainian commandos are holding onto just a few floors of the pulverized terminal building – fighting in the region has significantly decreased since a September ceasefire agreement between Kyiv and the rebels.

Russia has been accused of providing weapons and material to the local militias, and several videos posted online showed two large convoys approaching Donetsk from the east. Moscow denies providing direct military assistance to the rebels, and says any Russians fighting here are doing so as “volunteers.”

Russia and the West are also at odds over the legitimacy of Sunday’s votes, which the Kremlin has indicated it will recognize despite the protests of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, which monitors most elections in Europe, stayed away from Sunday’s votes, saying they were illegal under Ukrainian law and a violation of the September ceasefire agreement. However, a motley crew of fringe politicians – many of them from far right parties in Europe – arrived Saturday to watch the voting, declaring themselves to have formed an alternative “Agency for Security and Cooperation in Europe,” or ASCE.

Marton Gyongyosi, a member of Hungary’s far right Jobbik party, told The Globe and Mail that the Donetsk People’s Republic had “done a good job” of holding the elections, despite a civil war and “far from ideal” circumstances.

But there were many apparent irregularities, including the lack of a registered voters’ list, and the presence of armed gunmen in or near many polling stations. The groceries on sale outside was a Soviet-era tactic designed to boost turnout, selling cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips for the cut-rate price of one Ukrainian hryvnia (about 9 cents) per kilogram of each.

In several polling stations The Globe and Mail visited, the election officials were openly wearing orange-and-black St. George’s ribbons, a symbol associated with the military wing of the separatists.

But several voters said the process was less about the rules – or even the candidates’ platforms – than trying to give their leaders the legitimacy to make peace, and start negotiations about the future of this increasingly isolated region.

“I think we needed this vote to set a precedent. It’s different when you have a prime minister who is declared by a revolution, and a prime minister that is elected by the people,” said Aleksandr Strinadko, a well-known Donetsk photographer and artist who was standing in line to cast his ballot. “I don’t believe in miracles, but I hope we’ll see stabilisation and de-escalation of the conflict.”

Dennis Pushilin, the first head of state of the DPR – and the man who proclaimed its independence following the equally controversial referendum in April – told The Globe and Mail that the vote was another step towards creating a unified independent state in Donetsk and Lugansk that he referred to as “Novorossiya,” or “New Russia.” Novorossiya is a Tsarist-era term for parts of Ukraine that is frequently used by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“The revolution period has already passed, and now we’re building a new state and we have a lot to do,” Mr. Pushilin said in an interview. Eventually, he said, Novorossiya would be much larger than the territories now under the rebels’ control. “Our main goal is to reconstruct [Donetsk and Lugansk], to build the state system to increase salaries and pensions, and improve our industries. We need to make Novorossiya attractive to other residents of the former Ukraine.”

Follow Mark MacKinnon on Twitter: @markmackinnon

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