Irredentism

The rebel Luhansk and Donetsk republics in eastern Ukraine are holding leadership elections on Sunday.

The candidates in the vote, which takes place a week after the official parliamentary elections in Ukraine in which the residents in eastern Ukraine didn't have the chance to vote, are practically unknown and lack opposition.

Separatists in eastern Ukraine voted Sunday in controversial, Russian-backed leadership elections that Kiev and the West have refused to recognize and which threatened to deepen an international crisis over the conflict.
      

Russia is sending a fourth "humanitarian aid" convoy to rebel eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, reports RBK.

According to an announcement of Russia's Ministry of Civil Defence the 50-truck column with humanitarian aid for the Donetsk and Luhansk population will leave for Ukraine on Tuesday.

Russia plans to recognise elections being organised next weekend by rebels in east Ukraine in defiance of the government in Kiev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Oct. 28.