Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine named a leader of their
breakaway republic on Monday after a weekend election which was
denounced by Kiev and the West and further deepened a standoff with
Russia over the future of the former Soviet state. Organizers of
the vote said that Alexander Zakharchenko, a 38-year-old former
mining electrician, had easily won election as head of the “Donetsk
People’s Republic”, an entity proclaimed by armed rebels in the
days after they seized key buildings in cities of Ukraine’s
Russian-speaking east last April.
The rogue vote, which Kiev says Russia encouraged, could create
a new “frozen conflict” in post-Soviet Europe and further threaten
the territorial unity of Ukraine, …read more
Source: Reason.com
