Ukraine on Wednesday announced it will halt government funding to its eastern regions controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Wednesday the cutoff will apply as long as the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk are held by “terrorists.”

Yatsenyuk, who made his comments during a cabinet meeting, said the government would continue to supply gas and electricity to the area.

The self-declared breakaway regions on Sunday defied Ukraine by holding elections meant to assert their autonomy from Kyiv.

So far Russia is the only government to recognize the elections, which were slammed by the U.S., U.N. and others as unhelpful and illegitimate.

A two-month-old cease-fire is barely holding up in the rebel-held area, with occasional clashes breaking out between Ukrainian soldiers and separatist forces.

Late Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko ordered more troops deployed to key southern and eastern cities, to fend off any possible new pro-Russian rebel offensive.

A Poroshenko statement says the units will fortify the eastern cities of Mariupol, Berdyansk and Kharkiv against separatist incursions.

Ukraine security officials have reported a recent increase in cross-border Russian weapons transfers to rebels.

The president says he remains committed to most terms the September truce.  But in the aftermath of Sunday’s unsanctioned polls, he said he will ask parliament to repeal a law that gives special status to the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Sunday’s polls in Ukraine’s east came a week after voters in the rest of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for a new parliament dominated by pro-Western lawmakers favoring closer ties with western Europe.

Moscow has denied any direct role in the Ukraine uprising, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives since rebels took up arms against the Kyiv government in April.  The Kremlin has described Russian soldiers fighting alongside rebels in Ukraine’s east as volunteers.
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