MARIUPOL/SLAVIANSK/DONETSK: Rebels pressed ahead with a referendum on self-rule in east Ukraine on Sunday and fighting flared anew.

Swathes of eastern Ukraine Controlled by pro-Russian rebels voted on independence in polls the West slammed as illegal amid fears they could fan violence into full civil war and lead to the break-up of the ex-Soviet republic.

Clashes broke out around a television tower on the outskirts of the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk shortly before voters made their way to polling stations through streets blocked by barricades of felled trees, tyres and rusty machinery. But in the center of Slavyansk and surrounding towns, voters lined up calmly to cast ballots on self-rule for their two provinces.

“I wanted to come as early as I could,” said Zhenya Denyesh, a 20-year-old student voting at a three-storey concrete university building. “We all want to live in our own country.” Asked what he thought would follow the vote, organised in a matter of weeks by rebels, he replied: “It will still be war.”

Nikolai Somtsev, the deputy chief of the self-styled electoral commission in Donetsk city, said “everything is organised very well” and was taking place as planned.

Kiev has dismissed the so-called “referendums” addressed to seven million of Ukraine’s total 46 million inhabitants as illegitimate and unconstitutional.

Its Western backers echo that, but are concerned a “yes” result could scupper plans for a nationwide May 25 presidential elections seen as crucial for restoring stability.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly distanced himself from Sunday’s vote, making an appeal for it to be postponed, but was ignored by the rebels.

The United States and the European Union still see Putin’s hand in the unrest that has gripped eastern Ukraine since early April, believing he is seeking a re-run of the scenario that ended up with him annexing Crimea in March.

If Ukraine’s presidential election in two weeks is stymied, the US and Europe have warned of automatic sanctions designed to cripple broad sectors of Russia’s economy.

The Ukraine crisis has already pushed East-West relations to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Ukrainian troops have been battling the well-armed separatists, who have barricaded themselves in the more than dozen towns and cities they have grabbed.

In Mariupol, scene of recent fierce fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants, queues of hundreds of people snaked towards the polling stations, an AFP reporter on the scene said.

But not all voters seemed to grasp the implications of the poll.

“The Donetsk People’s Republic will not be separate, it will remain as part of Ukraine but it will become autonomous, as far as I understand,” said Irina, a children’s dentist casting her ballot in Donetsk.

Interim Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov warned that voting for independence would be a “step into the abyss” for these regions and lead to the “total destruction” of the economy there.