Well, it looks like Kiev isn’t liking their new position after the vote in Dontesk, eastern Ukraine. Of course they wouldn’t say that exactly, but Kiev has now said that they are willing to talk about giving more autonomy to the eastern regions, along the lines that Russia has been calling for.
This shows that Kiev sees the writing on the wall. With the vote for independence, and Dontesk’s call for Russia absorb them into Russia, Kiev can see how the situation could turn out even worse for them. Russia now has a vote, whether it is valid or not, that shows that they now have the right, given by the locals, to send in the troops and seize the regions in question.
No matter what other experts say, or what any government says, the vote has meaning. We can ignore it, and call it illegitimate, but in the end it happened, and everyone knows the results. Someone said that the separatists won the vote because those for Kiev stayed home, but isn’t that the problem with every vote. Democrats in the US say that if everyone voted in the US they would always win, but like in Dontesk that doesn’t mean anything.
The proof that the vote mattered is in Kiev’s reaction, and it seems that they are quite bothered by it.