This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/ukraine-crisis-putin-referendum-autonomy-postponed

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 2 Version 3
Ukraine crisis: Putin says referendum on autonomy should be postponed Ukraine crisis: Putin says referendum on autonomy should be postponed
(35 minutes later)
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said a planned 11 May referendum on autonomy in south-east Ukraine should be postponed and described nationwide presidential elections scheduled for later in the month as a "step in the right direction". The Kremlin beat a tactical retreat on Wednesday over a regional referendum scheduled for Sunday that would bring calls for more Russian annexation of tracts of Ukraine.
In a meeting with the Swiss president, Didier Burkhalter, Putin also called on Ukraine's military to halt all operations against pro-Russia activists who have seized government buildings and police stations across at least a dozen towns in eastern Ukraine. Following days of soaring tension that have left dozens dead and fed fears of a civil war in Ukraine, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, said the referendum being staged by pro-Russia separatists in parts of eastern Ukraine on Sunday should be postponed.
Pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region said they would consider Putin's call to postpone the regional referendum at a meeting of their assembly tomorrow. Denis Pushilin, a leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, said: "We have the utmost respect for President Putin. If he considers that necessary, we will of course discuss it." Overt Russian support for the plebiscite could have triggered more substantive EU and US sanctions against Russia. Putin's statement, following talks with the president of Switzerland in Moscow, looked likely to delay the imposition of a harsher round of economic penalties.
But outside the main headquarters of the separatist movement, an occupied government building in Donetsk, there was confusion at Putin's statement. A group of men guarding the entrance insisted that it was impossible Putin had offered support for the Kiev elections and asked to delay the referendum, and was certain it was a false story dreamed up by nefarious Ukrainian and western media. While Moscow has also always opposed the holding of presidential elections in Ukraine on 25 May, a ballot strongly supported by the west, Putin also sounded more conciliatory, saying that the poll could be a step in the right direction.
The Russian leader, however, insisted that a presidential election should be preceded by constitutional changes in Ukraine aimed at federalising the country and handing greater powers to the regions, steps that would favour greater Russian influence over eastern Ukraine after the Kremlin annexed the Crimean peninsula in March.
Putin said the Russian troops have been pulled back from the Ukrainian border to their training grounds and locations for "regular exercises," but did not specify whether those locations were in areas near Ukraine. However, Nato and the Pentagon both said they had seen no indication of a change in the position of Russian military forces.
It remained unclear whether the pro-Russia gunmen who have taken over public buildings in a number of towns in the Donetsk region would drop their referendum plans.
Outside the main headquarters of the separatist movement, an occupied government building in Donetsk, there was confusion at Putin's statement. A group of men guarding the entrance insisted that it was impossible Putin had offered support for the Kiev elections and asked to delay the referendum, and were certain it was a false story dreamed up by nefarious Ukrainian and western media.
"So Russia has abandoned us as well," said 58-year-old Natalia Medvedenko. "Well we will just have to fight the fascists on our own. But I still don't quite believe it.""So Russia has abandoned us as well," said 58-year-old Natalia Medvedenko. "Well we will just have to fight the fascists on our own. But I still don't quite believe it."
Putin also said the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine – slated for 25 May – were a move "in the right direction", but repeated that constitutional reforms would have to precede any nationwide vote in Ukraine. The Russian government said this week that constitutional changes should be enacted later this year, putting the presidential election off until the year's end.
Putin said Russia had withdrawn its forces from its border with Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported, though Nato later said it had not seen any signs of movement. That strategy is rejected by the west. Senior western officials pushed for the 25 May poll to go ahead and accused Moscow of working assiduously to foment chaos in order to invalidate the election.
"We're always being told that our forces on the Ukrainian border are a concern. We have withdrawn them. Today they are not on the Ukrainian border. They are in places where they conduct their regular tasks on training grounds," Putin was quoted as saying. They described Sunday's secession referendum as a bogus poll that would be seen as illegitimate, while insisting that the national election go ahead.
A senior UN diplomat arrived in Kiev on Wednesday while Switzerland's president met Putin in Moscow in a flurry of diplomatic activity seeking to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine. The Ukrainians "cannot be bullied out of having their elections by disorder that is deliberately fomented and coordinated from another country – in this case from Russia", the foreign secretary, William Hague, told the BBC after visiting Kiev and before Putin spoke.
Jeffrey Feltman, the UN under-secretary general for political affairs, met Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, earlier in the day. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, also arrived in Ukraine to speak to the nation's leaders. "They are entitled to have their democratic choice, to choose their own president."
Burkhalter, chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was scheduled to meet Putin for discussions on Ukraine and the status of OSCE observers on the ground. Eight international military observers travelling with the OSCE mission who were taken hostage by pro-Russia insurgents in the eastern city of Slovyansk were released on Saturday. Herman Van Rompuy, the senior EU official who chairs EU summits, delivered the same message. "The immediate goal is to support free and fair presidential elections. We agreed that further steps by Russia to destabilise the situation in Ukraine would lead to additional, far-reaching consequences," he said.
Russia and the west have expressed a desire for the OSCE to play a greater role in defusing the tensions in Ukraine. With the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the fate of Ukraine focused on popular votes, John Kerry, the US secretary of state, dismissed the prospect of Sunday's separatist referendum in the east of the country, describing it as contrived and bogus.
The US and European nations have increased diplomatic efforts before Ukraine's 25 May presidential election, as a pro-Russia insurgency continues to rock the country's eastern regions. Feltman was in Moscow on Tuesday and met Gennady Gatilov, a deputy foreign minister. "We flatly reject this illegal effort to further divide Ukraine," he said. While Nato says Putin has a 40,000-strong force poised on Ukraine's eastern border, the Russian president said on Wednesday that the troops had been pulled back.
Speaking in a BBC interview, Hague lent his support to the election. He said Ukrainians could not be "bullied out of having their elections by disorder that is deliberately fomented and coordinated from another country, in this instance Russia". "We're always being told that our forces on the Ukrainian border are a concern. We have withdrawn them. Today they are not on the Ukrainian border," he said.
In Berlin, a Ukrainian presidential candidate said he was prepared to negotiate a decentralisation of power, as pro-Russia insurgents have demanded. But Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire chocolate magnate, added that some separatists in the eastern region understood only "the language of force". The Americans and the Europeans are engaged in intensive talks over a third round of sanctions against Russia, targeting key industrial and economic sectors. Deciding to implement the next round of sanctions would mark a major escalation and entail Russian retaliation, hurting weak European economies.
Catherine Ashton, the top EU foreign policy official, was in Washington discussing the options, while US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David Cohen, toured key EU capitals to coordinate possible sanctions moves.
"We are moving in a strong and systematic way to maximise the cost on Russia … while minimising to the extent possible the spillover on other economies including those here in Europe," he said in Paris.
Depending on Putin's moves, however, the wider sanctions regime looked improbable. Hague emphasised the long-term cost to Moscow of its policies in Ukraine.
• Join our journalists to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine• Join our journalists to discuss the latest developments in Ukraine