Kyiv calls referendums in east Ukraine a ‘farce’ as Putin urges dialogue
Roman Lyagin, election chief of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic, said around 75 percent of the Donetsk region’s 3 million or so eligible voters cast ballots, with the vast majority backing self-rule.
With no international election monitors in place, it was all but impossible to verify the rebels’ claims. The preliminary vote count was announced just two hours after the polls closed in an election conducted via paper ballots.
A second referendum organized by pro-Russian groups was held Sunday in eastern Ukraine’s industrial Luhansk region, but no immediate results were released. According to RIA, which is citing a separatist leader, Ukraine’s Luhansk region may hold an additional referendum — this time on joining Russia, Reuters reported.
Although the voting in the two regions with a combined population of 6.5 million appeared mostly peaceful, armed men identified as members of the Ukrainian national guard opened fire on a crowd outside the town hall in Krasnoarmeisk, and an official with the region’s rebels said people were killed. It was not clear how many.
The bloodshed took place hours after dozens of armed men shut down the voting in the town. The shooting starkly demonstrated the hair-trigger tensions in the east, where pro-Russian groups have seized government buildings and clashed with Ukrainian forces over the past month.
Ukraine’s central government and the West had condemned the balloting as a sham and a violation of international law, and they have accused Moscow of orchestrating the unrest in a possible attempt to grab another piece of the country weeks after the annexation of Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had asked the organizers of the latest referendums to delay the vote in an apparent attempt to ease the crisis. The rebels refused. The results of the two votes could hasten the breakup of the country and worsen what is already the gravest crisis between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
Over the past few weeks, the Ukrainian government and the West have accused Russia of trying to destabilize the country or create a pretext for another invasion. Russia — which annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula just days after voters there approved secession in a March referendum — has rejected the accusations.
Turchynov and Ukraine’s caretaker government came to power in February following the ouster of Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych after months of protests in Kyiv. Moscow and many in Ukraine’s east have accused the new government of intending to trample the rights of eastern Ukraine’s Russian-speakers.
More than 30 people have been reported killed since Ukrainian forces began trying to retake some eastern cities from the rebels.
Al Jazeera and wire services