DONETSK, Ukraine—Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine appeared to be on track to declare victory in a referendum Sunday that Kiev and the West say is illegal and riddled with irregularities.More.
The vote ratchets up tensions between the Kremlin, which may recognize the vote, and the nascent government in Kiev, which is struggling to regain control of the two provinces that it says Moscow is destabilizing through support of rebels.
Heavy turnout suggested that weeks of instability and violence in the region had helped turn simmering anger against Kiev into open defiance and separatism that polls showed barely existed earlier this year.
Separatist leaders said they opened more than 1,500 voting stations across one province alone. In the coastal city of Mariupol, the scene of deadly clashes last week between separatists and Ukrainian soldiers, thousands of people turned out to join lines that stretched for city blocks, with some residents bringing lawn chairs to rest their legs as they waited.
Amid an absence of electoral observers and a heavy presence of separatist gunmen patrolling the streets, the government in Kiev said the results of the vote are certain to be rigged.
One Donetsk electoral official, Mikhail Samolenko, said Sunday there were no real safeguards to keep people from voting several times, but that it didn't matter "because everyone is voting yes" for independence. Separatists said they may release results as early as this evening.
Plus, Maria Bartiromo interviews Kori Schake of the Hoover Institution (video), who indicates that recent polls found that 70 percent of residents in the eastern region would vote to retain membership with Ukraine. No outside election observers are on the ground. It's a sham, rigged election, which only strengthens Putin's claims to territorial revisionism.
And at Euronews, "Ukraine: voters in Donetsk participate in disputed poll."
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