Pro-Russian separatists defy Putin call to delay referendum in Ukraine

Pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine decided to go ahead with a Sunday referendum on greater local powers, they said Thursday, defying a call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone the vote. Putin had urged the pro-Russia sympathizers to delay the May 11 referendum in order to give dialogue "the conditions it needs to have a chance." Representatives from the council of the self-declared Donetsk's People's Republic and separatists from Luhansk told reporters they have voted to press ahead with the referendum to ask eastern Ukrainian residents living there if they want sovereignty from Kiev. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow or Kiev. Asked about Putin's plea on Wednesday as pressure mounts to defuse the escalating Ukrainian crisis, Denis Pushilin, the self-declared chairman of the Donetsk People's Republic, said the comments were "surprising" but he respected him. Sunday's referendum would be an echo to events in March, when voters in Crimea approved a controversial ballot to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, which subsequently annexed the Black Sea peninsula. The event escalated the turmoil rocking the country. The separatists have defied other issues in the past -- an international pact reached among Russia, Ukraine and its Western allies in Geneva, Switzerland, last month that called for the rebels to disarm and vacate buildings seized in the volatile region has not yet materialized. In what seemed to signal a softening in Moscow's attitude toward Kiev, Putin also said Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled for this month were "a step in the right direction." But he also voiced caution. "But it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine's people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place," Putin added, according to a Kremlin transcript following his meeting with the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.