IT looked almost like a real election day in Donetsk, the capital of the industrial Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Polling stations in the usual schools and kindergartens opened on time, their entrances decorated with balloons, and jolly music played outside. Young and old queued up to cast their vote in transparent ballot boxes. There was but one hitch: the referendum for the self-rule of the Donetsk People’s Republic was a fake, a product of an extraordinary information war, just like the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.
