Russia has announced plans to recognise elections scheduled for next weekend by rebels in east Ukraine, defying the government in Kiev and indicating that the crisis, which began nearly a year ago, is far from abating. In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Moscow's plans saying: "We expect the elections will go ahead as agreed, and we will of course recognise the results."
Two pro-Russian separatist regions, the self-proclaimed people's republics of Dontesk and Luhansk, are holding polls on Sunday to elect leaders and parliaments, exactly a week after Kiev completed general elections which the two regions refused to participate in.
"We are counting on it being a free vote and that it will go ahead unhindered," Lavrov said.
Lavrov said the elections would be "important from the point of view of legitimising the authority" of the regions' rebel leadership. He also said Moscow was likely to recognise parliamentary elections held by Ukraine on Sunday, although it would wait for the verdict of the OSCE observers.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/10/russia-backs-rebel-polls-east-ukraine-20141028998626393.html
So the Russian government will "wait for the verdict of the OSCE observers" before recognizing the legitimacy of the results. However, it will "of course recognise the results" of the separatist election.
Who the election monitors are in the separatist election. Apparently not the OSCE. Perhaps the same assortment of politicians from the far-right in Europe as served as 'observers' in the Crimean referendum.
"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.
Belá Kovács, 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.
Kovács 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."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/ukraine-crisis-crimea-referendum
I wonder if the Russian government would be equally respectful of an election held by separatists in Siberia as they are those in Ukraine.
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