UKRAINIAN president Petro Poroshenko has publicly lifted his objections to a referendum that could give more powers to the restive regions engulfed in more than a year of warfare, reversing his government's previous position. However, Russia-backed separatists dismissed his gesture as meaningless.

The conflict between Russia-backed rebels and government troops in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 6,000 lives.

When it began, protesters in the east demanded a vote on giving their regions more autonomy. Such calls were rejected by the Ukrainian government at the time.

But Poroshenko has met a parliamentary commission that is drafting amendments to the country’s main law, said in a televised meeting that if the commission decides a referendum is necessary, he would not stand in the way.

"I'm ready to launch a referendum on the issue of state governance if you decide it is necessary," he said.

Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland was the support base for Kremlin-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in February last year after months of protests.

Several months into the fighting, however, pro-Russia rebels said they no longer wanted autonomy, but rather an independent state. Hostilities have subsided in the region after the parties agreed in February to a cease-fire deal brokered by Western leaders in Minsk, Belarus.

Russia-backed separatists on Monday balked at the idea of a referendum as offering too little. Senior rebel officials Andrei Purgin said that none of their representatives were invited to sit on the constitutional commission to start with, "which already says a lot."