DONETSK, Ukraine – Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine began voting in controversial leadership elections on Sunday that Kiev and the West have refused to recognise and which threatened to deepen an international crisis over the conflict.The elections in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic, which are based around the two main rebel-held cities, were designed to bring a degree of legitimacy to the makeshift military regimes that already control them.However, heavy fighting flared across the conflict zone in south-eastern Ukraine ahead of the election, which Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has blasted as a violation of an already …read more
Source: AsiaOne
