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Alexander Khudoteply / AFP / Getty Images
Voting began on Sunday in two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine as pro-Russia separatists hold controversial elections for new leaders — a move that threatens to deepen the international crisis over the conflict.
Elections were held in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, areas held by pro-Russia rebels and declared independent of Ukraine earlier this year.
Analysts see the voting as being designed to legitimize the makeshift military regimes that already control the cities. Both are electing new presidents and parliaments, but their current unelected rebel chiefs — Alexander Zakharchenko in Donetsk and Igor Luhansk in Luhansk — are widely expected to be confirmed in their posts.
Residents of Donetsk and Luhansk are mainly Russian-speaking, and about half of the territory in those areas is held by separatists.
“We have the right to our own election, our freedom and to live the way we want to,” said Lyubov Khatsko, 55, who came to vote from the town of Marinka, west of Donetsk. “We want the Ukrainians to get out of here.”
The vote, which has been cast by election organizers as a decisive development in the region’s break with Ukraine, earned condemnation from Kiev, Washington, the European Union and NATO, who all said they would not recognize the election.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Sunday condemned the elections as illegitimate and called on Russia not to honor the results.
Poroshenko said the elections were "a farce, [conducted] under the barrels of tanks and machine guns," and that they violated a series of agreements known as the Minsk Protocol that underpin a Sept. 5 cease-fire deal between the separatists and Kiev.
"I count on Russia not to recognize the so-called elections because they are a clear violation of the Sept. 5 Minsk Protocol, which was also signed by Russia's representative," he said.
But Russia has already said it will recognize the results — sparking a new round of criticism from the West.
Nearly 4,000 people have been killed since the rebels took up arms in April, seizing control over large swathes of Ukraine’s industrial southeast. The majority of residents in the region of Crimea, a peninsula in southern Ukraine, voted in favor of annexation by Russia in March.
Annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk by Russia is less likely, largely because of massive reconstruction costs that would be necessary after months of fighting, analysts have said.
The crisis in Ukraine began eight months ago when protests broke out over then-president Viktor Yanukovich’s rejection of a trade deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. The move was widely seen as a shift away from Europe and towards deeper ties with Moscow, and eventually sparked an uprising across the entire country and Yanukovich’s ouster.
Poroshenko was elected Ukraine’s new president in May and went on to sign the trade deal with the European Union. Parliamentary elections were held last month in Ukraine, with pro-Europe parties securing a big win according to exit polls.
Poroshenko said the results showed that the people backed his plan to end the separatist conflict, as well as supporting his pro-Western course.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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