Separatist-held regions hold elections in eastern Ukraine

REBEL-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine held leadership elections yesterday in the shadow of a conflict that has killed more than 10 000 people and poisoned relations between Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine and its international backers have lined up to condemn the vote as a sham manipulated by the Russian authorities and in violation of a 2015 Minsk ceasefire agreement. The US urged voters to boycott.

Backed by Moscow, separatist rebels seized territory in eastern Ukraine after pro-Western protests toppled President Viktor Yanukovich in 2014 and Russia annexed Crimea a month later.

The US called the elections a charade to give false legitimacy to Moscow-approved leaders already installed in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

“These particular elections are a mockery, really, of the idea of genuine elections that need to be held,” Kurt Volker, Washington’s envoy to the Ukraine conflict, said.

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko called the elections “illegal and represent yet another example of Russian subversive activity”.

Russia disputes that the elections violate the Minsk agreement.

“Actually, the deplorable situation with the implementation of the Minsk package was provoked by Kiev’s unwillingness to fulfil the Minsk agreements,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The Donetsk region’s acting head, Denis Pushilin, ran yesterday’s election after his predecessor Alexander Zakharchenko died in an explosion in August.

Several former separatist leaders have fled the Donbass area, saying they feared for their lives after their comrades turned on them. Other leading separatists have been killed.

“Pushilin is a soap bubble, there are completely different people behind him, this is Moscow,” a former separatist leader Alexei Alexandrov said.

Ukraine-based analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said Russia was using the elections to give legitimacy to the region’s leaders and may try to turn the fighting into a frozen conflict with the two breakaway regions as protectorates.

Peskov acknowledged Russia had influence on the region’s leaders but said “it is not unlimited”.