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Ukraine crisis: voting begins in Crimea as president warns of Russian 'invasion' Ukraine: Crimea poll opens with landslide vote expected for union with Russia
(about 1 hour later)
Voting has got under way in Crimea in a referendum that will decide whether the Black Sea peninsula leaves Ukraine and becomes part of Russia. Voting is under way in Crimea's referendum, which is expected to deliver an overwhelming majority of votes for union with Russia but has been denounced internationally as illegitimate and illegal.
Polling stations opened at 8am local time (6am GMT) and are due to close 12 hours later. Provisional results will be released late on Sunday, with the final tally expected one or two days later. A vote in favour of leaving Ukraine could prompt US and European sanctions against Russian officials as early as Monday. Voters on the peninsula have been given two options to choose from at the referendum, which has been organised in a matter of days. One calls for union with Russia, while the other offers increased autonomy within Ukraine. There is no option to retain the status quo.
The majority of Crimea's 1.5 million electorate are thought to be in favour of leaving Ukraine and becoming part of Russia, but others see the referendum as part of a land grab by the Kremlin. Ethnic Tatars, Sunni Muslims of Turkic origin who make up 12% of Crimea's population, have said they will boycott the referendum. Russian state television was reporting a huge turnout for the referendum and claimed there were "no armed men" at the polling stations.
European leaders and the US president, Barack Obama, have dismissed the vote, which has been organised by Crimea's pro-Russian authorities at short notice, as illegitimate, saying it would violate Ukraine's constitution. State news agency Interfax quoted the observer Enrique Ravello, a nationalist deputy in Spain's parliament, as saying he had seen an "unprecedented turnout", adding: "There's no coercion, pressure on people. The referendum is being held peacefully, freely and openly."
According to ballot papers published before the referendum, voters have the right to choose one of two options, neither of which rejects control by Russia. According to polling by German research group GfK, 70% of Crimeans who want to participate in the referendum plan to vote to join Russia, while only 11% plan to vote to remain part of Ukraine.
The first question asks: "Are you in favour of the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation?" The second asks: "Are you in favour of restoring the 1992 constitution and the status of Crimea as a part of Ukraine?" This envisages making Crimea an independent entity within Ukraine, with the broad right to determine its own path and choose relations with whom it wants, including Russia. Crimean leaders have made no secret of the fact that they expect a landslide victory for joining Russia, and posters across the region call on voters to make the correct choice. Ethnic Russians make up a slight majority in Crimea, which was part of the Russian republic within the Soviet Union until 1954, but minority populations of Tatars and Ukrainians are less enthusiastic about the vote and many Tatars have said they will boycott the poll.
On Saturday, Ukraine's president said there was a "real danger" Moscow would seize further territory after the referendum in Crimea, and he accused "Kremlin agents" of orchestrating turmoil in the Russian-speaking east of his country. In Kiev, the Ukrainian parliament has called the vote illegitimate and voted to dissolve the Crimean parliament, a decision that has been ignored on the ground, where Russian troops and armed local "self-defence" units remain in control.
The acting leader, Oleksander Turchynov, said there was every possibility Russia would advance deeper into Ukraine. He told parliament: "The situation is very dangerous. I'm not exaggerating. There is a real danger from threats of invasion of Ukrainian territory." The Crimean referendum website was down on Sunday. Previously, organisers claimed the site had been subject to a DDoS hacker attack originating in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne in the US.
A group of Russian commandos advanced beyond Kremlin-occupied Crimea on Saturday and landed by helicopter in an area of southern Ukraine under Kiev's control, Ukraine's defence ministry said. About 60 Russian troops arrived in four helicopters at 1.30pm in the village of Strilkove, in Kherson province, three miles (5km) beyond the autonomous Crimean border. Another 60 flew in in six helicopters at 3.30pm. Saint Petersburg has closed down its main street for an automobile rally in support of the Crimean referendum organised by conservative parties.
Early reports suggested Ukrainian forces had evicted them, but the Russian contingent still appeared to be there on Saturday night. A spokesman for Ukraine's border guard service, Oleg Slobodyan, said the Russians had taken up positions next to a gas production facility, backed by three armoured personnel carriers. Ukrainian troops had reportedly retreated to a nearby crossroads. On Saturday, Moscow was the scene of huge competing rallies for and against Russian intervention in Ukraine. At least 10,000 people took part in an anti-intervention rally, at the end of which was read a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Crimea and the end of Russian interference in Ukraine's internal affairs.
Ukraine's foreign ministry dubbed the incursion a "military invasion" by Russia. It demanded that Moscow withdraw its forces and said Ukraine "reserves the right to use all necessary measures" to stop the invasion. The area, Arbatskaya Strelka, is a long section of land running parallel to Crimea. Since independence it has been in Kherson province, but the land was originally part of Soviet Crimea and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, may be attempting to restore this communist-era border. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, initially said there was no chance that Russia would absorb Crimea, but the rhetoric in recent days has changed, and the de facto leader of the peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, told the Guardian on Saturday that he had received "signals" from Moscow that Crimea's petition would be accepted.
Most of the infrastructure that supplies Crimea with water and electricity is in the Kherson region. Reports suggest that Crimea's secessionist authorities have claimed the gas production company that owns the facility, which would explain the arrival of Russian troops. This week, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Russia "will respect the expression of the will of the Crimean people in in the upcoming referendum".
Ukraine's acting foreign minister, Andriy Deshchyta, said on Saturday it was essential that the new government in Kiev, supported by the EU and the US, resists what he called Russian "provocations". He said he was prepared to discuss greater autonomy for Crimea but only with the proper legal authorities, and not while there were "guns on the streets". He described the referendum as totally illegal. In Kiev, the Rada, Ukraine's parliament, voted to dissolve the regional assembly in Crimea that organised Sunday's poll and has already endorsed union with Russia. With the influx of Russian troops and the seizure of power by Aksyonov, who was previously a marginal figure in Crimean politics, many in the west hregard events in Crimea as part of a carefully choreographed Russian plan. Aksyonov, however, insisted his rise was a response to a genuine threat from far-right Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev after the events that led to President Viktor Yanukovych being toppled last month.
At the UN security council in New York, Russia vetoed a US-backed motion declaring the Crimea referendum invalid. The Russian envoy, Vitaly Churkin, claimed Crimea was given illegally to Ukraine in Soviet times – a view apparently held by Putin. Russia's vote was the only no, with China abstaining, while 13 nations voted yes. The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said the result underscored Moscow's profound isolation over Crimea. Russia could not, she said, "deny the truth that there is overwhelming international opposition to its actions". "The first thing they should have done was to have wide-ranging consultations and invite people from Russian-speaking regions to work together. Instead all we got was threats," he said. "We had no other option. Should we wait here for people to come here with arms?"
The mood in the east, meanwhile, remains febrile following three deaths in two days in the cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv. On Thursday evening, Russia's foreign ministry posted an ominous statement saying that Moscow reserved the right to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine. A day later, following talks in London with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said no invasion was planned. The situation in Crimea remains tense, with gangs of local militia patrolling the streets and Russian troops surrounding Ukrainian military installations in the region. Aksyonov on Saturday again repeated Moscow's line that the men were not Russian soldiers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Late on Saturday night, about two dozen heavily armed men, possibly local Crimean special forces, entered the Hotel Moscow in Simferopol, where many foreign journalists are staying, and occupied several floors. Some claimed it was a training exercise while others said they were searching for an armed criminal. They departed without a shot being fired.
There was further violence on Saturday when pro-Russian protesters stormed Donetsk's security service. There have been large pro-Russian demonstrations in both cities, stirred up – Kiev says – by Moscow and its operatives on the ground. No major international organisations are monitoring the vote, but a group of observers from 23 countries – a mixture of anti-western ideologues and European far-right politicians – have arrived of their own accord and gave a press conference in Simferopol on Saturday evening.
Two men, aged 21 and 30, were killed by buckshot late on Friday when pro-Russian demonstrators besieged an office of the far-right Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector, which rose to prominence fighting riot police in Kiev over the winter. Police said 32 Right Sector activists and six pro-Russian demonstrators had been detained and a number of weapons seized. Bela Kovacs, an MEP from the far-right Hungarian party Jobbik, said everything he had seen on Saturday conformed to international standards and he expected the vote to be free and fair.
Many of the observers railed against the west and said that by recognising Kosovo, the west had opened a Pandora's box and had to accept the result in Crimea.
"What is sauce for Kosovo's goose is certainly sauce for Crimea's gander," said Serbian-American writer Serge Trifkovic. When asked if observers had been paid to attend, he said that if he were looking for money he would have approached the CIA. The observers, he said, were "as poor as church mice".
Kovacs said there were no British observers at the referendum. The BNP's Nick Griffin "really wanted to come, but we persuaded him not to", he said.
The polls close at 8pm local time (6pm GMT), and the first results are expected two and a half hours later.