Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko killed in explosion in Ukraine

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

The leader of a Kremlin-backed separatist republic in war-torn eastern Ukraine has been killed in a blast that tore through a cafe close to his official residence in Donetsk.

Alexander Zakharchenko, 42, was named prime minister of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) in November 2014. The DNR’s official news agency confirmed his death and said the republic’s finance minister, Alexander Timofeev, was injured when the explosive device went off in the Separ café in the centre of Donetsk. The bomb was planted in a nearby vehicle, Ukrainian media reported.

Zakharchenko is the latest in a series of separatist leaders to have been assassinated during the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, where more than 10,000 people have died since fighting broke between Kremlin-backed separatists and pro-Ukrainian government forces in 2014, according to UN figures. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting.

The Russian foreign ministry was quick to react, accusing the Ukrainian government of ordering the “terrorist attack”. The Ukrainian security service chief, Igor Guskov, said Zakharchenko’s death could have been the result of infighting between rival separatist factions or an operation by Russian special forces. Kiev has previously accused Russia of killing separatist figures who refuse to obey Kremlin orders.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/31/rebel-leader-alexander-zakharchenko-killed-in-explosion-in-ukraine

[samir.g]

1. trumpy has a sad

[pecosbob]

2. A part of me wonders

if this is just another false-flag operation by the Kremlin to justify invading the rest of Ukraine.

[Igel]

3. The Donbas is run quasi-Stalin style.

If somebody's inconvenient, they die.

Or they're arrested.

Or they mysteriously turn up in exile.

Perhaps they go to Moscow for consultations, only to find that in their 3 hour absence they've been removed from office, a warrant issued for their arrest, and their travel papers cancelled. Oops.

These things have no flag. They happen, and then everybody claims that the others did it. Without a flag.