From a cramped office in residential Donetsk, election officials Sunday frantically worked to prepare for next Sunday's Ukraine presidential poll, despite what they described as intimidation and threats from pro-Russian separatists.

By Monday morning, their resolve broken, they had shut down their office.

"We're not working, out of safety concerns," said Volodymyr Klotsky, a member of election commission No. 43, adding that he and his colleagues had reluctantly taken the decision after "terrorists" had seized the offices of another voting commission nearby.