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MINSK, Belarus (AP) – Residents of eastern regions of Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed separatist rebels voted Sunday for local governments in elections denounced by Kiev and the # 39; West.
The elections were to choose heads of government and members of parliament in the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, where separatists had been fighting Ukrainian forces since the spring of 2014 in a war that killed more than 10,000 people.
Although a 2015 agreement on the end of the war calls for local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk, critics among whom the President of Ukraine, the United States and the European Union have declared that the vote was illegitimate because it is headed without control of Ukraine.
But separatists believe that the vote is an essential step towards the establishment of a full-fledged democracy in the regions.
"This is another examination of the civic position, the political stance of the whole Donetsk Republic," said Denis Pushilin, interim president of the separatist regime of Donetsk since his predecessor Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in a bomb attack at a restaurant in August.
His Luhansk counterpart, Leonid Pasechnik, said on Sunday that "we were a free republic, a free country" and denied that the vote is taking place contrary to the 2015 agreement signed in Minsk.
The German and French leaders, who participated in the negotiation of this agreement, rejected "the illegal and illegitimate elections … that took place today despite the many calls from the international community".
"These are elections for entities that have no legitimacy under the Ukrainian constitution," Kurt Volker, US special envoy for Ukraine, said last week.
"The people of eastern Ukraine will be better off in a unified and peaceful Ukraine than in a second-rate police state, led by crooks and thugs, all subsidized by Russian taxpayers, "the prime minister said on Twitter.
Both regions reported a participation rate of more than 70% two hours before polls closed at 8 pm (17:00 GMT).
Later on Sunday, the spokesman of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he had discussed these elections with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron during ceremonies in Paris commemorating the end of the First World War , Sunday.
In a statement after the meeting, Merkel and Macron said the holding of "so-called" elections undermined the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and called on all parties to respect the rule of law. cease-fire and release political prisoners.
Germany, France and Ukraine are among the so-called "Normandy format" countries in search of a solution to the conflict. Russia is the fourth country in the format, which has not held negotiations for two years.
Andrei Yermolaev, an analyst at the think tank on the New Ukraine in Kiev, said that "to conduct the elections despite the views of Kiev and the West means that the Kremlin totally controls the situation in the region and has the intention to use this "frozen conflict" as an effective way, leverage the Ukrainian authorities ".
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Jim Heintz in Moscow and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this story.
