Ukraine rebels plan November elections
Pro-Russian rebels have defiantly announced they will stage their own elections in just six weeks, raising the stakes in a standoff with Kyiv despite both sides moving to end five months of deadly fighting.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics on Tuesday said they would hold simultaneous votes on November 2 to choose their leaders and ‘Supreme Soviets’ or parliaments.
The surprise announcements are a slap in the face for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who only a week ago offered the separatist regions limited self-rule in a major concession to try to forge peace.
There was no immediate comment from his office.
Just hours earlier, insurgent leaders said they were withdrawing their big guns from the frontline under a peace plan forged with Kyiv aimed at ending a conflict that has now killed well over 3,200 people since April.
AFP journalists said they saw tanks moving back from an area near Donetsk — the main rebel stronghold — although fighting was reported around the city’s airport.
‘We have withdrawn artillery, but only in those areas where the Ukrainian regular units have done the same,’ Donetsk ‘prime minister’ Alexander Zakharchenko told the Interfax news agency.
Ukraine had said on Monday it was starting a pullback under the terms of the deal signed in Minsk on Saturday that calls for both sides to withdraw from the frontline and establish a 30 kilometre-wide demilitarised zone.
Hopes for an end to violence that has devastated many towns across Ukraine’s rustbelt had been kindled by an initial European-brokered truce signed by Moscow as well as Kyiv and the rebels on September 5.
Ukrainian lawmakers then last week adopted legislation offering the rebels broader autonomy for three years and local elections on December 7.
Poroshenko said the ‘special status’ law was the only way out of a conflict that has threatened Ukraine’s very survival in the face of what Kyiv views as Russia’s expansionist threat after its annexation of Crimea in March.
The war has sent the already-struggling economy to the brink of collapse, and Ukraine is relying on a $US27 billion ($A29.21 billion) international bailout to stay afloat.
The Minsk deal had put on the back burner all issues concerning claims by the separatist regions for full independence from their foes in Kyiv.
The separatists launched their insurrection in April, seizing towns and cities across the east and holding disputed independence referendums in May for Donetsk and Lugansk.
A top UN rights official said Tuesday that the death toll from the conflict now stands at 3,245 plus the 298 victims from a downed Malaysian passenger jet in July.
