Amid Eastern Ukraine Vote, Soldiers Open Fire on Crowd - Associated Press

[newthinking]

- Jon Queally, staff writer
Associated Press

Ukrainian national guardsmen opened fire Sunday on a crowd outside a town hall in eastern Ukraine and an official for the region's insurgents said there were fatalities.

The bloodshed in the town of Krasnoarmeisk occurred hours after dozens of guardsmen shut down voting in a referendum on sovereignty for the region.

An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the shooting said two people were seen lying unmoving on the ground and insurgent leader Denis Pushilin was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying there were an unspecified number of deaths.

Several hours earlier, guardsmen came to the town about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the regional capital, Donetsk, and dispersed referendum voting that was taking place outside the town hall and they took control of the building. In the evening, more guardsmen arrived in a van and a scuffle broke out with people who were gathered around the building. Then the guardsmen fired shots.

People cast ballots at a polling station during the referendum on the status of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, in Moscow May 11, 2014. (Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin)


More: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/11-0

[msongs]

1. putin is the only vote that counts. nt

[eridani]

2. Robert Parry: Ukraine's Dueling Elections

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/23631-ukraines-dueling-elections

That led to the dispatch of new special units drawn from the neo-Nazi militias that spearheaded the Feb. 22 coup against Yanukovych and now have been incorporated into the National Guard.

Though the introduction of these special units have led to dozens of deaths among the ethnic Russian resistance – including at the grisly fire in Odessa on May 2 – the violence has done little to cow the people of the rebellious region who turned out in large numbers on Sunday despite two attacks marring the mostly celebratory air at the referenda.

One of Kiev’s special units, known as the Dnepr Brigade, attacked a polling place at the City Hall in the town of Krasnoarmiysk on Sunday afternoon, causing the vote organizers to grab ballot boxes and run. When a civilian tried to block other soldiers from entering the building he was shot dead, according to an account in the New York Times.

Two other civilians were wounded in the village of Baranikovka in the Luhansk region when, according to the Interfax news agency, Ukrainian soldiers fired into a crowd blocking National Guard armored vehicles.

Despite Sunday’s strong expression of public support for secession, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the voting “illegal under Ukrainian law, and … an attempt to create further division and disorder.” She vowed that the United States would not recognize the results.

The next step for the State Department will be to promote a special Ukrainian presidential election called by the Kiev regime for May 25, with only regime supporters being given any chance of victory after major candidates representing the anti-coup east withdrew from the race, citing threats of arrest and physical attacks.