Separatist rebels pressed ahead with a referendum on self-rule in east Ukraine yesterday and fighting flared anew in a conflict that has raised fears of civil war and pitched Russia and the West into their worst crisis since the Cold War.
Clashes broke out around a television tower on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk shortly before voters made their way to polling stations through barricaded streets.
"I wanted to come as early as I could," said Zhenya Denyesh, 20, second to vote at a concrete three-storey university building. "We all want to live in our own country."
In nearby Mariupol, scene of fierce fighting last week, officials said there were only eight polling centres for 500000 people. Queues grew and at one centre voting urns were set out on the pavement.
Western leaders threatened more sanctions against Russia in energy, financial services and engineering if it continued with efforts to destabilise Ukraine.
Moscow denies any role in the fighting or any ambitions to absorb the mainly Russian-speaking east, an industrial hub, into the Russian Federation following its annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March.
Ukraine's interior ministry called the referendum a criminal farce, its ballot papers "soaked in blood". Some see a "Yes" vote as endorsement of autonomy within Ukraine, some as a move to independence and others as a nod to absorption by Russia. The vote went ahead despite a call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone it.
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