Donetsk, Luhansk separatist announce results of their polls

Representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk separatis organization called people’s republics summarized the results of their polls for independence of their regions on May 11. According to Donetsk separatists, 75% citizens of the Donetsk region participated in the poll and 89% voted in favor of independence. Journalists ironized that this number coincided with the number that Alexander Barkashov, Russian leader of a right radical movement, suggested in a talk with a Donetsk republic’s representative. Their telephone talk was made public by Ukrainian Security Service on May 7.

Luhansk separatists have not yet announced results of their regional poll, only stating that number of those voted in favor of independence was between 94% and 98% in different locations. Luhansk separatists are also still waiting for the results from their Moscow-based polling station, according Russian RIA Novosti. 

Activists of an alternative poll, questioning to join Donetsk and Luhansk territories to the Dnipropetrovsk region, announced on May 11 that 2.44 mln people in the regions participated in their “referendum”, Liberty Radio reported. This corresponds to 50% of the registered voters in the region. Activists are yet to reveal results of their poll. 

Alexander Paraschiy: The results of separatist polls have brought little surprise. A vote without rules and observers (even from the Russian side), with ballots printed on office paper, where people were able to vote many times and nobody was asking about any documents, which results have been calculated for a couple of hours, is no more but a farce. Russian president Putin is yet to decide how to treat the “referenda”, according to his spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Though, given that Russian media paid much attention to this “event” and even the Russian capital hosted a polling station for Donbass regions’ citizens, Putin’s approval of the results of these polls can be easily predicted. 

It is clearly in favor of Putin to accept the results of separatists “referenda”. With such a move, he will not only add more arguments for the Russian army to invade eastern Ukraine (to at least encourage separatists for more violent actions in eastern Ukraine), but he will make the Crimean “referendum” for independence (which was better prepared and was officially supervised by “international observers”) a bit more “legal”.