Election preparations were under way in east Ukraine yesterday on the eve of an independence vote called by pro-Russian separatists as Ukrainian government forces pushed ahead with a military offensive against the rebels.
The voting preparations come after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Crimea on Friday, for the first time since its annexation by Moscow, as the fighting in eastern Ukraine left more than 20 dead.
Despite a surprise call from Putin this week to delay the independence referendums, rebels holed up in more than a dozen towns and cities in eastern Ukraine vowed to press ahead with votes that are bound to increase tensions.
Amid the military operation by the Ukrainian army to oust rebels in the region that has left dozens dead, today’s referendum asks people if the industrial region of Donetsk should become independent from Kiev and is seen as a potential stepping stone by some toward joining Russia.
A similar vote is also to be held in the neighboring Lugansk region.
Together, the two regions have a total population of 7.3 million, out of 46 million for all of Ukraine.
The leader of Donetsk’s separatists, Denis Pushilin, has said that the referendum will be held in “90 percent of the towns in the region” and that they expect a turnout of 60 percent.
The determination to hold the vote, despite Putin’s call for a postponement, dashed hopes of easing the crisis.
Putin’s Crimea visit further spiked the tensions and drew a sharp rebuke from authorities in Kiev, who accused the Russian strongman of stoking tensions with his visit to Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
“This provocation once again confirms that Russia deliberately seeks further escalation of tensions,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, calling the visit a “flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
The White House also condemned the trip, with US National Security Council spokeswoman Laura Magnuson saying it “will only serve to fuel tensions.”
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the visit “inappropriate” given Crimea’s “illegal, illegitimate” annexation.
A poll released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center in the US suggested that 70 percent of Ukrainians in the east want to stay in a united country, while only 18 percent back secession. However, two in three respondents in the east are unhappy with the Western-backed government in Kiev.
With unease high ahead of the independence vote, fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Moscow militants erupted in the southeastern port city of Mariupol.
An attempt by about 60 rebels armed with automatic weapons to storm the city’s police headquarters turned into a “full-scale military clash,” when army and interior ministry troop reinforcements arrived, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Facebook.
He said the death toll from the near-two-hour combat stood at 20 rebels and one policeman, while another four policemen were wounded and four rebels were captured.
Witnesses in Mariupol told reporters that the fighting was ferocious and involved an exchange of automatic gunfire and shelling from eight armored vehicles.
The police headquarters was gutted by fire and, after the battle, firemen were at the scene trying to extinguish the flames.
Unrest was also reported on Friday in the eastern city of Donetsk, with pro-Russian militants saying two of their number were wounded by brief gunfire from Ukrainian troops stationed at a sanatorium on the outskirts of the city. The troops withdrew from the area after talks, they said.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said it was also investigating the death of an Orthodox priest allegedly shot eight times at a rebel checkpoint in the Donetsk region on Thursday.
In a telephone call with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the need for the “rapid launch” of talks between Kiev and regional authorities in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that Moscow urged Washington to “work with Kiev to achieve the end of military operations in the southeast [of Ukraine], the release of political prisoners and amnesty for protesters.”
EU ministers are to meet tomorrow to consider further measures.
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