Kharkiv (Ukraine) (AFP) - Ukraine braced on Saturday for a breakaway vote in Crimea as deadly violence flared again in the ex-Soviet country's tinderbox east amid the biggest East-West showdown since the Cold War. The second successive day of deadly unrest that has now claimed three lives in the mainly Russian-speaking east of the country came hours after Moscow, whose forces have seized control of Crimea, warned that it reserved the right to "protect" compatriots in the whole of Ukraine. US Secretary of State John Kerry had on Friday failed to either avert Sunday's Crimea ballot or win Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's assurance that Moscow may delay annexing the Black Sea region that Ukraine only received as a "gift" from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
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March 15th, 2014
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