Ukraine’s election body issued a stark warning on Saturday that it may be impossible to hold next week’s crucial Presidential election in the east, where a pro-Moscow insurgency is threatening to plunge the country into all-out civil war.
The Central Election Commission called for the authorities in Kiev to take urgent action to ensure security in the east, saying almost two million people could be prevented from voting on May 25 because of the rebellion.Its warning came as Ukraine’s embattled Western-backed government was preparing to hold a second round of “national unity” dialogue called for under an OSCE-sponsored peace plan.
The commission said it could not prepare for the vote in the east because of threats and “illegal actions” by separatists who have overrun more than a dozen towns and cities since early April.Although the talks are taking place later on Saturday in the eastern city of Kharkiv which has been rattled by violence since the rebellion erupted—no separatist leaders have been invited to the table to Russia’s annoyance. The West see the election as crucial to defusing the crisis on Europe’s eastern flank and preventing the former Soviet republic from disintegrating further after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
But despite a month-long offensive, Ukrainian military has failed to wrest back control of the main industrial regions of Donetsk and lugansk, where rebels have now declared their own independent republics in defiance of Kiev and West.