High Turnout in Ukraine Vote Since Independence

{{Ukrainians voted on Sunday in a presidential election billed as the most important since they won their independence from Moscow 23 years ago, but armed pro-Russian separatists disrupted voting in eastern regions of the former Soviet republic.}}

Early signs pointed to a high turnout in sunny weather in an election where the main candidates, including front-runner Petro Poroshenko, a confectionery magnate, are promising closer ties with the West in defiance of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

But the absence of over 15 percent of the electorate, in Russian-annexed Crimea and two eastern regions where fighting with pro-Moscow rebels continued on Saturday, may mar any result – and leave the Kremlin questioning the victor’s legitimacy, for all Putin’s new pledge to respect the people’s will.

{Former prime minister and Presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko (L), accompanied by her husband Oleksander (R), casts her vote during a presidential election at a polling station in Dnipropetrovsk May 25, 2014.}