Ukraine separatists begin controversial polls as Western powers demur

Polls have opened in two regions of eastern Ukraine in controversial leadership elections held by pro-Russia separatists that Kiev and the West have refused to recognise and which threatens to deepen the international crisis over the conflict. The elections on Sunday in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, which are based around the two main rebel-held cities, are designed to bring a degree of legitimacy to the makeshift military regimes that already controls them. Both are choosing new presidents and parliaments, but there is little question that the current unelected rebel chiefs – Alexander Zharchenko in Donetsk and Igor Plotnitsky in Lugansk – will be confirmed in their posts.

These elections are important because they will give legitimacy to our power and give us more distance from Kiev.

Roman Lyagin, election commission chief of the Donetsk People’s Republic

No international election monitors will be present for the vote, and no minimum turnout has been set by the organisers, reflecting the uncertainty over how many voters will bother turning out. Moscow’s backing for the vote has sparked a new round of criticism from the West, which has said that punishing sanctions against the Russian economy will not be lifted until the Kremlin does more to help implement a repeatedly violated truce in Ukraine. The war has claimed more than 4,000 lives since it broke out in April, with rebels wresting control of much of Ukraine’s industrial southeast.

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