"With armed men in the polling station, no voter lists, and international observers coming from an organisation concocted the night before the vote, these were no normal elections.
"But then the Donetsk People’s Republic is no normal country. It is no country at all, according to most of the world. But the vote for prime minister here and in neighbouring Luhansk region on Sunday was one more step towards creating a new reality on the ground and carving out a chunk of Ukraine that will no longer controlled by Kiev."
And that's just the beginning of Shaun Walker's excellent piece on the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk votes. He drives home the point that these votes have "given hope to older generations that they will never again be part of Ukraine."
Read on here:
Where to next, Transdniester?
More from Reuters on the strong German reaction to yesterday's vote:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday Berlin found it incomprehensible that "official Russian voices" should recognise an election held by pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine.
Sunday's elections have been condemned by Kiev and its Western allies as illegal. Russia's foreign ministry was quoted on Monday as saying Moscow "respects" the outcome of the vote.
"It is all the more incomprehensible that there are official Russian voices that are respecting or even recognising these so-called elections," spokesman Steffen Seibert told a regular government news conference.
The current developments in east Ukraine rule out any premature lifting of EU economic sanctions against Russia, he added. If the situation worsened, further sanctions may be necessary, Seibert said.
From AFP:
Russia on Monday called on Ukraine to halt its military offensive against pro-Moscow rebels in the east, saying the insurgent leaders had enough "authority" to hold talks with Kiev.
Deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin made the appeal after Moscow recognised separatist elections in two eastern Ukraine regions dismissed as illegal by Kiev and the West.
The rebel leaders elected "have enough authority to establish broad sustainable dialogue with Kiev authorities," Karasin told Russian state news agency TASS.
"This work can bring results only on condition of equal dialogue based on mutual respect, with Kiev renouncing military operations and the notorious 'anti-terror operation'," Karasin was quoted as saying.
Russia has endorsed the rebels' Sunday elections held in the Ukrainian regions of Lugansk and Donetsk. But critics say the polls were aimed at legitimising the pro-Russian rebellion.
Russia risks a new round of Western sanctions over the contentious vote, but Karasin appeared to dismiss that threat.
"The language of sanctions is an absolutely counter-productive method of solving conflicts," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
"This has been proven by history."