RUSSIA announced Tuesday it will recognize separatist polls in Ukraine next weekend, sparking an angry reaction from Washington and Kiev’s newly elected pro-Western leaders.

    The rebel elections Sunday should “go ahead as agreed” and Russia will “recognize the results,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

    Lavrov’s remarks were seen as one of Moscow’s most overt acts of support for the separatists to date.

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Moscow’s recognition of the rebel votes would be “a clear violation of the commitments made by both Russia and the separatists” in the truce agreement signed in the Belarussian capital Minsk on Sept. 5.

    President Petro Poroshenko’s spokesman also said the rebel polls “put the entire peace process under threat.”

    The row followed an increase in cease-fire violations in the wake of Sunday’s parliamentary election, in which Poroshenko’s allies won a convincing victory.

    (SD-Agencies)