Rebels in Ukraine claim big turnout for vote dismissed by West

Pro-Russian rebels late Sunday claimed a massive turnout for a vote to split off east Ukraine into two independent republics, but Kiev and the West dismissed it as a “farce” that could worsen the violence wracking the ex-Soviet nation.

With many polling stations closed, activists in the more than dozen insurgent-controlled towns were counting ballots behind closed doors. In the rebel hub of Donetsk, AFP and other media were barred from entering to observe the process.

The tallying rounded out a tense day in east Ukraine, where troops are waging an ongoing offensive against pro-Moscow gunmen.

Isolated violence flared in some towns. A freelance photographer working for AFP said he saw at least two people shot and badly wounded in the town of Krasnoarmiysk, apparently by a group of armed pro-Kiev militants.

The pro-Russian rebels put voter turnout at over 70 percent in the two provinces voting for self-rule: Donetsk and Lugansk, home to seven million of Ukraine’s total population of 45 million.

With haphazard voter registration, no neutral monitors, incomplete electoral rolls, and no international backing at all — not even from Russia — that assertion lay open to challenge.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt already challenged it, writing on his official twitter feed: “Figures from fake referendums in Eastern Ukraine likely to be fake. No way of knowing even turnout.”

However rebel leaders hinted strongly that the poll results, expected to be announced on Monday, were roundly in favour of making the two regions sovereign republics.

“Turnout was better than we expected,” the rebel chief of the self-styled People’s Republic of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said.

“Thanks to this referendum, we will be able to decide our own future,” he said, adding that “we must make those occupying our land leave”.

Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-styled mayor of the flashpoint town of Slavyansk, boasted that the rebels could go on to organise other polls, including on whether to become part of Russia. “And I can even give you the figures if you want,” he said.

Kiev, though, called Sunday’s vote a “criminal farce” that had no legal or constitutional validity.

It said the vote was “inspired, organised and financed by the Kremlin”.

– ‘Illegal’ vote –

Western nations backing the Ukrainian government also dismissed the “so-called referendums”.

They were “null and void,” French President Francois Hollande said on a visit to Azerbaijan.

The European Union issued a statement calling the vote “illegal” and stating that the outcome would not be recognised. Its organisation “runs counter” to efforts “to de-escalate tensions,” the office of EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

Britain’s Foreign Office echoed that and stressed that a nationwide presidential election meant to be held in two weeks would provide “all Ukrainians… a democratic choice”.

Britain also added its weight to a French and German warning of “consequences” against Russia if that May 25 election were scuppered.

The United States and the European Union see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hand in the unrest that has gripped eastern Ukraine since early April. They believe he is seeking a repeat of the scenario that led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March.

Putin comments Wednesday calling for the rebels to put off the independence vote did little to allay suspicions, especially when an assertion by the Russian leader that he had pulled troops back from the Ukrainian border had yet to be confirmed.

If Ukraine’s presidential election is stymied, the West has warned of immediate sanctions to cripple broad sectors of Russia’s economy.

“Russia continues to isolate itself for a short-term gain. They, the Russians, may feel that somehow they’re winning. But the world is not about just short term,” US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told ABC television.

– Independence ‘will be hard’ –

But questions over the vote’s validity or the geopolitical consequences appeared far from the minds of those who lined up to cast ballots Sunday.

Tatiana, a 35-year-old florist voting in the regional hub of Donetsk, told AFP: “If we’re independent, it will be hard at the beginning but it will be better than being with the fascists.”

The “fascist” epithet was the one separatists and Russian state media use to describe Ukraine’s Western-backed government.

Mariupol, a city of 500,000 inhabitants, saw some of the longest voting lines because only four polling stations operated.

Anti-Kiev sentiment was riding high after a fierce firefight between troops and rebels that killed up to 21 people on Friday.

Coupled with deadly clashes and an inferno in Odessa a week earlier that killed 42 people, many Russian-speaking Ukrainians who had been wavering decided to vote their anger against the government.

Others, though, were strongly opposed to the rebels and the referendums.

One 20-year-old fireman in Mariupol, Ivan Shelest, told AFP: “If this goes through and they really become the Donetsk Republic it will be a disaster. What sort of people will lead it? It will be chaos — even worse than now.”

A poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Centre in the United States suggested 70 percent of Ukrainians in the east want to stay in a united country, while only 18 percent back secession.