Ukraine’s interim president slammed the independence vote held in the country’s East on Sunday as ’farce without any legal basis’.

Ukraine's interim president slammed the independence vote held in the country’s East on Sunday as 'farce without any legal basis'.

"The farce that terrorist separatists call a referendum is nothing more than propaganda to cover up murders, kidnappings, violence and other serious crimes," Oleksandr Turchynov told Ukraine's parliament on Monday.

The only "legal effect" of Sunday's referendum would be to bring those that called it to justice, the interim president said.

He however reiterated his desire to "continue dialogue with those in the east of Ukraine, who have no blood on their hands and who are ready to defend their goals in a legitimate way."

Independence vote was held on Sunday in the two flashpoint provinces of Donetsk and Slavyansk.

The vote, carried out as two referendums in provinces where the activists hold more than a dozen towns, marks a serious deepening of the political crisis in Ukraine, which has pushed East-West relations to lows not seen since the end of the Cold War.