-- Self-appointed leaders of the Ukrainian separatist region of Donetsk appealed to Russia to consider absorbing it to "restore historic justice" and to send in troops.
-- Pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk said they would not allow voting for the May 25 presidential election to be conducted.
-- Diplomats say the European Union agreed to impose sanctions against 13 additional individuals and two companies, believed to be the first time the EU has targeted companies over the Ukraine crisis.
-- Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov called the votes a "sham" and the United States said they were illegal and merely "an attempt to create further division and disorder in the country."
-- RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service said one of its affiliate radio stations in Donetsk was taken off the air by gunmen and replaced by a pro-Russian broadcaster.
-- The Kremlin said Ukrainian officials in Kyiv should hold talks with pro-Russian separatists on the results of the self-rule referendums, adding that it respected the "expression of the people's will."
Voters in Mariupol, said to be standing outside waiting to vote in the referendum.
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A man casts his ballot along with a dozen or so others in the village of Ternove near Luhansk. There doesn't appear to be any privacy in the vote-casting. No voting booths or curtains to hide behind.
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NATO's deputy secretary-general, Alexander Vershbow, says Moldova has warned against attempts to bolster Moscow-backed rebels in Moldova as Kyiv scrambles to quell a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking to RFE/RL ahead of his visit to Moldova next week, Vershbow said Moldova was facing "increasing pressure" due to the crisis in Ukraine. He called on Moscow to "respect Moldova's territorial integrity" and said the alliance would look "very negatively" at any attempt to bring Moldova's breakaway Transdniester region "closer to Russia."
Romania says it wants an explanation from Russia over threatening remarks made by Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy prime minister. Rogozin said on Twitter that he would return in a strategic bomber after Romania barred his plane from its airspace. Rogozin's plane was returning to Russia from the Moldovan breakaway region of Transdniester.
Rogozin is one of the Russian officials on Western travel ban lists over Moscow's annexation of Crimea and for allegedlly sowing discord in eastern Ukraine.
Romania's Foreign Ministry asked Moscow to clarify whether Rogozin's comments represented "the Russian Federation's official position towards Romania as an EU and NATO member." It also said Rogozin's tweet was "a very grave statement under the current regional context."
Read more about Rogozin's trip and his controversial comments here.
