2 killed in Ukraine violence

AS CRIMEA PREPARES TO VOTE

KHARKIV, Ukraine — Ukraine braced on Saturday for a breakaway vote in Crimea as deadly violence flared again in the ex-Soviet country's tinderbox east amid the biggest East-West showdown since the Cold War.

The second successive day of deadly unrest that has now claimed three lives in the mainly Russian-speaking east of the country came hours after Moscow, whose forces have seized control of Crimea, warned that it reserved the right to "protect" compatriots in the whole of Ukraine.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had on Friday failed to either avert Sunday's Crimea ballot or win Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's assurance that Moscow may delay annexing the Black Sea region that Ukraine only received as a "gift" from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.

The rugged Black Sea peninsula — home to two million mostly Russian speakers and the base of tsarist and Kremlin navies since the 18th century — is widely expected to vote in favour of joining Russia after its lawmakers declared independence from Kiev earlier this month.

The referendum comes weeks after a pro-Kremlin regime was toppled in Kiev after months of deadly protests and replaced with Western-leaning leadership, which has denounced Sunday's vote as illegal.

But Moscow, whose troops seized control of Crimea in the days after Ukraine's president was ousted, strongly backs the referendum despite international condemnation and a new round of painful sanctions against top Russian officials that Washington and EU nations are expected to unveil as early as Monday.