U.S., EU denounce elections in Russia-backed Ukraine regions

MINSK, Belarus — Residents of the eastern Ukraine regions controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels voted Sunday for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the West.

The elections were to choose heads of government and legislature members in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, where separatists have fought Ukrainian forces since the spring of 2014 in a war that has killed more than 10,000 people.

Although a 2015 accord on ending the war calls for local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk, critics including Ukraine’s president, the U.S. and the European Union say the vote is illegitimate because it is conducted where Ukraine has no control.

But the separatists say the vote is a key step toward establishing full-fledged democracy in the regions.

“It’s another exam for the civic position, political position for the whole Donetsk Republic,” said Denis Pushilin, who is acting head of the regime.

His Luhansk counterpart, Leonid Pasechnik, said Sunday that “we are a free republic, a free country” and denied that the voting was being held contrary to the 2015 agreement.

Last week, the EU condemned the elections as “illegal and illegitimate they are in breach of international law, undermine the commitments taken under the Minsk agreements and violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and law.”

“These are elections for entities that have no legitimacy under the Ukrainian constitution,” Kurt Volker, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, said last week.