Ukraine announced on Thursday it was going on with its military operation against separatist activists in the country’s east, as activists insisted on conducting an independence vote.

Ukraine announced on Thursday it was going on with its military operation against separatist activists in the country’s east, as activists insisted on conducting an independence vote.

The secretary of Ukraine's national security and defense council said that the military operation against pro-Moscow rebels "will go on regardless" of Russian President Vladimir Putin urging them to postpone an independence vote.

"The counterterrorist operation will go on regardless of any decisions by any subversive or terrorist groups in the Donetsk region," in Ukraine's east, Andriy Parubiy told reporters in Kiev.

Ukrainian officials earlier Thursday rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's call for them to halt a military operation against the rebels, who have seized more than a dozen towns.

On the other hand, the leader of the separatist activists, Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said that the independence vote in east Ukraine will go ahead this weekend as planned despite Putin calling on them to postpone it.
"The referendum will happen May 11," Pushilin, told reporters.

"The date of the referendum will not be postponed," Pushilin said, adding that the council running his republic had voted to go ahead with the regional poll.
A spokeswoman for the activists in the flashpoint town of Slavyansk confirmed to AFP that the vote would happen Sunday.

Activists in the other self-proclaimed separatist republic centered on the city of Lugansk said they, too, were pushing ahead with their simultaneous referendum Sunday.

The affirmations came a day after Putin urged the pro-Russian separatists to put off the vote to give space for dialogue to end the crisis in Ukraine.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the European Union said the decision to go ahead with the independence vote in east Ukraine that has "no legitimacy" can "only further worsen" the situation.

Commenting on the decision to hold the referendum on Sunday, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy Catherine Ashton said: "Such a vote could have no democratic legitimacy and would only further worsen the situation."