A pro-Russia insurgency in east Ukraine has decided to go ahead with a referendum on autonomy despite a call from Russian president Vladimir Putin to delay the vote.
The co-ordinating committee of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic announced that it would hold the vote on Sunday as planned.
Putin had urged them to delay the referendum, which many fear could be a flashpoint for further violence between Ukrainian troops and the pro-Russia militants who have seized government buildings in about a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine.
While Putin’s call to postpone the vote was seen as part of an effort to step back from confrontation with the west, he has fuelled tensions again by overseeing military exercises that Russian news agencies said simulated a massive retaliatory nuclear strike in response to an enemy attack.
Putin said the exercise involving Russia’s nuclear forces had been planned back in November.
The decision to hold the vote as planned was unanimous. The organisers have said the referendum was on whether to give the eastern regions more autonomy within Ukraine, but they have left open the possibility of using it to seek independence or annexation by Russia.
Putin also declared that Russia has pulled its troops away from the Ukrainian border, although Nato and Washington said they saw no signs of this.