Ukraine crisis deepens after rebel vote in east

Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, calls emergency meeting of the country's security council after denouncing separatist election as a "farce"

Petro Poroshenko says rebel elections "threaten to disrupt the entire peace process"

The crisis in Eastern Ukraine deepened on Monday as Kiev threatened to scrap a ceasefire with Russian backed rebels following controversial elections in separatist held territory.

The threat came as fighting surged at key flashpoints near the separatists strong hold of Donetsk, raising the prospect of a complete collapse of a shaky two month truce.

Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, called an emergency meeting of the country's security council to discuss responses to the vote, which he called a "gross violation of the Minsk agreement" that "threatens to disrupt the entire peace process."

"We will make the necessary changes to our plan of action based on both optimistic and pessimistic forecasts," he said in a statement.

The President said "diplomatic" options would still be pursued, but warned that he had also ordered defend chiefs to prepare for the failure of such efforts.

Fighting surged at Donetsk airport on Monday evening, with the sound of heavy shelling reverberating through the city centre throughout the night.

Artillery fire resumed on Tuesday while separatists in the city prepared for the inauguration ceremony of Alexander Zakharchenko, the newly elected head of the Donetsk People's Republic.

Separatists held parliamentary and presidential elections in the self declared Luhansk and Donetsk "peoples republics" on Sunday.

The elections, which were designed to add legitimacy to the rule of separatists who have defacto controlled the area since spring, drew strongly worded condemnations from the United Statesand the European Union for violating the September 5 Minsk agreement.

Russia has said it will recognise the vote.

The Minsk protocol introduced a shaky ceasefire and envisaged elections in the region under a special Ukrainian law devolving powers to eastern Ukrainian regions.

The deal implied that separatist held areas would remain part of Ukraine on paper, allowing Mr Poroshenko to sell the deal at home as a way of preserving territorial integrity.

But separatist leaders have since rejected that aspect of the deal, making clear that Sundays elections were meant to cement their full secession from Ukraine.

Mr Poroshenko said he would cancel the law granting devolved powers in response but said decentralisation remained on the table - including putting an end to the "irritating question of who feeds whom" by making the Donbass region raise and spend it's own revenues.

That would appear in part to be legislating after the fact.

The central government stopped paying pensions and salaries to public sector workers in separatist areas in June.

By Roland Oliphant