Partition feared
MARIUPOL/SLAVIANSK, Ukraine, May 11, (RTRS): Pro-Moscow rebels expressed confidence eastern Ukraine had chosen self-rule in a referendum on Sunday, while differing on what that meant as fighting flared in a conflict that could pitch Russia and the West into a new Cold War.
Well before polls closed, one separatist leader said the region would form its own state bodies and military after the referendum, formalising a split that began with the armed takeover of state buildings in a dozen eastern towns last month.
Another said the vote would not change the region’s status, but simply show that the East wanted to decide its own fate, whether in Ukraine, on its own or as part of Russia.
A near festive atmosphere at makeshift polling stations in some areas belied the potentially grave implications of the event. In others, clashes broke out between separatists and troops, over ballot papers and control of a television tower.
Zhenya Denyesh, a 20-year-old student voting early at a university building in the rebel stronghold of
Slaviansk, said: “We all want to live in our own country”. But asked what he thought would follow, he replied: “It will still be war.”
In the southeastern port of Mariupol, scene of fierce fighting last week, there were only eight polling centres for a population of half a million. Queues grew to hundreds of metres in bright sunshine, with spirits high as one centre overflowed and ballot boxes were brought onto the street.
On the eastern outskirts, a little over an hour after polls opened, soldiers from Kiev seized what they said were falsified ballot papers, marked with Yes votes, and detained two men.
They refused to hand the men over to policemen who came to take them away, saying they did not trust them. Instead they waited for state security officers to interview and arrest them.
On the edge of Slaviansk, fighting broke out around a television tower shortly before people began making their way through barricades of felled trees, tyres and machinery for a vote Western leaders say is being orchestrated by Moscow. The Ukrainian defence ministry said one serviceman was wounded.
The West has threatened more sanctions against Russia in the key areas of energy, financial services and engineering if it continues what they regard as efforts to destabilise Ukraine.
The European Union declared the vote illegal on Sunday and may announce some modest measures as soon as Monday, limited by the bloc’s reluctance to upset trade ties with Russia.
Moscow denies any role in the fighting or any ambitions to absorb the mainly