Pro-Russian rebels voted to set up a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, Reuters reported. In the latest effort to defy Kiev and the West, the rebels claim, "we don't want to live under the Kiev government that has turned its back on us," said Sergei Kovalenko, 58, a private security guard who came to vote with his wife at a polling station. The United States and European Union have denounced the vote as illegitimate, which is sure to stoke tensions further between the West and Russia.
