'What vote?': Ukrainian refugees in Russia scorn Kiev poll

While much of Ukraine is abuzz with campaigning for Sunday's parliamentary poll, refugees who have fled fighting in the east for Russia say they want nothing to do with the vote. "Ukrainian elections? What elections?" scoffed Pavel, 46, one of 300 Ukrainians holed up at a Russian holiday camp some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border near the town of Taganrog. "How dare the Kiev authorities organise elections when they're bombing half the country," he barked. "I will never, ever vote for those who are trying to kill us." Forced across the border by six months of brutal fighting between pro-Russian rebels and Kiev forces, thousands of Ukrainians camped out along the frontier are turning their backs on the election. Russian-speakers like Pavel say it's not the Ukrainian poll they're waiting for but a separatist leadership vote set to be held a week later in the areas in the east of the country under rebel control. "We'll vote on November 2 and not a minute sooner," Pavel said, referring to the date set for elections by the two self-proclaimed rebel republics, which will elect parliaments and leaders. Many residents in the temporary housing blame Kiev for the turmoil that has forced them -- and over 400,000 others -- from their homes and claimed some 3,700 lives. - Bullets not ballots - When asked about Sunday's election -- likely to see pro-Western and Ukrainian nationalists win big -- they exploded in anger. "They want my vote? What they deserve is a bullet," said Anastasia, a 37-year-old lawyer who had previously fought with the rebels. "I'm not Ukrainian any more. I am a citizen of Novorossiya," she said, using a Tsarist-era term for former Russian-controlled areas in the region that the rebels have now adopted. "Why would I go and vote for a country that's not mine anymore?" Svetlana, who fled to Russia with her two young children after a mortar hit her neighbours' flat, killing them on the spot, agreed. "These elections don't exist for me. Ukraine isn't my country any more," she chimed in. While they won't vote in the Ukrainian poll, the refugees look set to cast their ballots in the rebel election. Polling stations will be set up to allow refugees to take part in the separatist vote in November, said Anzhelika Antsupova, a member of staff at the refugee reception centre. But she added: "Nothing has been put in place for those on October 26. "It's not our job to do this, because we're Russian! And the Ukrainian government doesn't want to be in contact with us," she said. Vitaly Moskalenko, Ukraine's consul-general in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, said if refugees from the camp want to vote in Sunday's election, they must register at the consulate 80 kilometres (50 miles) away. He said the number of Ukrainians who have registered there since the beginning of the conflict "has remained stable: around 9,000 people". Russia says there are more than 44,000 Ukrainian refugees in the Rostov region alone. Overall, UN figures show that some 200,000 Ukrainians have applied for temporary asylum or refugee status in Russia since the fighting broke out in April. While some seem to have crossed back after rebels firmed up their grip on parts of the region, thousands are still stranded along the border and others have been moved to more permanent housing elsewhere in Russia. With rebels pledging that no vote organised by Kiev will be held in the territory under their control, almost no-one seem likely to take part in the parliamentary polls. - 'Campaigning for war' - For those now cut off from their homes, the Ukrainian election seemed to be fuelling fears of fighting instead of bringing hope of peace. Instead, any faith they had was being placed in the rebel leadership trying to win themselves some sort of legitimacy with the November polls. "Look at the electoral campaigns of our candidates. Their unifying theme is achieving peace, a ceasefire," said rebel turned refugee Anastasia. "The Ukrainians are campaigning for the war, promising more arms and more troops in the east to kill us." She nevertheless admitted she had yet to decide who to vote for. "I know them well, these candidates. I have fought at their side," she said of the rebels. "Some of them have bad habits. I need to reflect hard before electing one of them, or we will end up like Ukraine," she said.