Written by Nikolaus von Twickel
“DNR” leader Alexander Zakharchenko was assassinated by a bomb on August 31 in Donetsk, in what is potentially the greatest shake-up since the Minsk agreement of 2015. While many feared or predicted an escalation, the Kremlin signaled that it would stick to the Minsk peace process despite the assassination. Zakharchenko’s funeral became an interesting show of public support for the Donetsk separatists.
Lamp bomb in Café “separatist”
Zakharchenko walked into the Café “Separ”, short for “Separatist”, in central Donetsk on Friday afternoon when a strong explosion went off that instantly killed one of his bodyguards and severely injured the separatist leader and nine other people.
The “DNR” leader died of head wounds on the way to hospital, according to Alexander Kazakov, a Russian political consultant, who has worked as Zakharchenko’s advisor since 2016. Kazakov stressed that Zakharchenko had decided spontaneously to visit the café, which is located close to his office. He added that stops in restaurants were a habit of Zakharchenko that became “a headache” for his bodyguards.
Among the injured was Zakharchenko’s deputy Alexander Timofeyev, who goes by the nom de guerre “Tashkent” and was widely seen as the most powerful figure in the “DNR” besides Zakharchenko and also as one of the most corrupt.
Timofeyev suffered severe burns in his face but left hospital to attend Zakharchenko’s wake on Sunday. At the funeral, he was seen standing towering with a shaven head and blackened face behind Zakharchenko’s coffin.
Separatist-controlled and Russian media later reported that the explosive device was hidden in a lamp that hung from the ceiling at the café’s entrance and that it was triggered remotely, presumably with a mobile phone.
These circumstances led most observers to conclude that Zakharchenko’s assassins came from or at least had support from his close entourage. Russian media reports said that the café, which had opened only last December, was owned by a former Zakharchenko bodyguard.
The owner was identified in social media posts as Alexander Kostenko – a former bodyguard who has been a member of the separatist parliament since 2016 and now heads the ruling “Donetsk Republic” movement’s faction. As of Tuesday, it was unclear if Kostenko was being treated as a suspect by the “DNR”. Late on Friday a report from Russia’s Interfax news agency said that one of Zakharchenko’s bodyguards had gone missing and that a search for him was ongoing.
The Interfax report, quoting “DNR” sources, also said that “a number of Ukrainian special agents” had been arrested in Donetsk in connection with the explosion. Dmitry Trapeznikov, the Zakharchenko deputy who was appointed interim leader hours after the assassination, said later that a number of arrested agents had confessed Ukraine’s involvement.
However, the Russian news site Rosbalt reported late on Sunday that all suspects have been released again and that Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent some “serious specialists” to Donetsk to find the assassins. The latter information was confirmed Monday, when Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said that its experts were already on the ground to investigate the killing.
The Donetsk State Security “Ministry”, which is known by its acronym MGB and said to be controlled directly by the FSB, only released a statement saying that a special investigation task force had been formed.
Surkov skips the funeral
Unsurprisingly, the “DNR” media did their best to describe the farewell ceremony for Zakharchenko as a massive show of support for the separatists. While the official number of more than 200,000 mourners in Donetsk might be exaggerated, certainly tens of thousands showed up, many of them having been bused from neighbouring towns like Horlivka.
Surprisingly, the ceremony was not attended by a single representative from the Russian government. Kremlin aide Vladislav Surkov, who is believed to personally oversee everything in the “People’s Republics”, did not show up in person, instead sending four lines of – admittedly very personal – condolences.
Surkov met Zakharchenko only one week ago for “independence celebrations” in South Ossetia (see Newsletter 40).
Overall, the number of foreign mourners was small. There were hardly more than a dozen VIPs from Russia, including Duma deputy Natalya Poklonskaya, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov, former “DNR” Prime Minister Alexander Borodai and prominent biker and Putin supporter Alexander Zaldostanov. Duma member Dmitry Sablin, who was born in Mariupol and is one of Russia’s richest MPs, made his first public appearance in Donetsk.
The Russian attendants were seemingly on private visits and “DNR” Foreign “Ministry clearly avoided the term delegation when referring to them.
Other than Russia, Georgia’s separatist regions sent “international” guests, namely South Ossetia’s de facto President Anatoly Bibilov and Abkhazia’s deputy Prime Minister Astamur Ketsba – whose lower rank is explained by the fact that unlike South Ossetia, Abkhazia has not recognized the “DNR” as independent.
The Luhansk leader’s low profile
While the main figures of the Luhansk separatists – leader Leonid Pasechnik, parliamentary “Speaker” Denis Miroshnichenko and Foreign “Minister” Vladislav Deinego – traveled to Donetsk for Sunday’s ceremony, Pasechnik kept a markedly low profile, making no public comments and appearing only briefly at the public wake but not at the funeral.
Footage published by the “LNR” Lugansk 24 Channel and later by the “DNR” Information “Ministry” showed Pasechnik, wearing a green uniform, saluting Zakharchenko’s coffin in the Donetsk Opera building. He was accompanied by Miroshnichenko and Anna Soroka, a deputy Foreign “Minister” who made a short statement afterwards.
Deinego, however, did not appear at all on the footage broadcast in Luhansk. But it was he and not Pasechnik, who stood prominently at Zakharchenko’s grave during the funeral, making a short speech that was published by the “DNR” official website: Deinego said that the “brotherly” republics “DNR” and “LNR” would move closer together “in face of the enemy who committed this vicious crime”.
The Luhansk separatist leader, who came to power through a putsch in November, is widely seen as a man of the FSB, having served as an intelligence officer throughout his career, first in Ukraine and later as “LNR” State Security “Minister”.
Who is to blame?
Zakharchenko’s assassination is by far not the first but certainly the most high-profile killing of a prominent separatist since the war in Donbass began in 2014.
As in previous cases, the separatists blmed Ukraine. On Sunday, Denis Pushilin, the “DNR” chief Minsk negotiator and parliamentary “Speaker”, called the assassination an “open provocation against Minsk agreement” and “an act of aggression” by Ukraine. An official statement by the “DNR” military command released late on Friday said that this was “a terrorist act committed by Ukrainian special forces under control of US special services”.
However, the text also spoke of a “treacherous blow”, confirming that the assassination was made possible through betrayal from Zakharchenko’s own people. A similar suggestion came from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said on Russian state TV on Sunday that Zakharchenko had been killed “traitorously“.
All in all, the Kremlin’s reaction was relatively restrained. While Maria Zakharova, the always sharp-tongued Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, accused the “Kiev regime” on the same day, Peskov merely said that the killing was a provocation that would likely increase tensions. Neither he nor President Putin’s condolences, issued the same night, mentioned Ukraine at all.
And while hardline Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that the assassination “nullifies” the Minsk agreement, Peskov stressed on Monday that Moscow would continue to stick by the agreement.
Ukraine, in turn, suggested that Zakharchenko had been killed either by Russia or by his rivals. Ihor Huskov, a senior official of the Ukrainian Security Service SBU, said that the assassination could be “the result of criminal conflicts among the fighters, most probably over the allocation of seized businesses,”. He added, however, that the SBU does not exclude an attempt by Russia’s intelligence agencies to remove a much-hated figure, “who, according to our information, was obstructing the Russians”.
Zakharchenko has indeed been the subject of massive speculation this year, centering on corruption allegations against himself and especially Timofeyev. Rumours about their imminent removal peaked in early June, amid uncertainty if Putin will keep Surkov as his point man for eastern Ukraine (see Newsletter 32).
The situation seemingly calmed after Surkov’s reappointment on June 13, but further signs of infighting appeared soon – the sacking of the “DNR” transport “minister” and the departure of Russian novelist-turned separatist commander Zakhar Prilepin (see Newsletter 36). In August, Zakharchenko’s obvious resistance to call off elections for this November (see Newsletter 40) introduced new troubles.
Overall, the “DNR” has been more stable outwardly than the neighbouring “LNR”, where numerous recalcitrant commanders were killed until separatist leader Igor Plotnitsky himself was removed in last year’s putsch (see Newsletter 25). The killings in the “DNR” of Arseni Pavlov and Mikhail Tolstykh in 2016 and 2017 remain unsolved, but Ukraine seems an unlikely culprit because both were mid-ranking field commanders killed in extremely daring operations that required deep infiltration of the separatists’ security structures.
While Zakharchenko clearly is a much more prominent and attractive target, his assassination also requires the sort of deep infiltration that seems unlikely given Kiev’s intelligence agencies’ performance in the war so far.
While it is too early to broadly analyse the consequences, there are grounds to assume that Zakharchenko’s death won’t change much. This reflects the conviction, held by most observers in Ukraine and the West, that all separatist leaders in both Donetsk and Luhansk are largely puppets for the Kremlin who is pulling the strings through mainly invisible “curators”.
While it is hard to judge the exact degree of autonomy possessed by the likes of Zakharchenko and Timofeyev, it is clear that neither they nor their successors can seriously oppose Moscow, as long as Russia provides the “People’s Republics” with almost everything – from arms and ammunition to food and cash (see Newsletter 22). This is another good reason for Kiev to think twice before killing a separatist leader.
Finally, the theory of internal opponents is as weak as these opponents are themselves.
Unlike Plotnitsky of the “LNR”, Zakharchenko did not have serious rivals in Donetsk. The second most prominent separatist, Denis Pushilin never openly criticized him, not even after he was ousted as leader of the ruling “Donetsk Republic” movement in October (see Newsletter 24). And Alexander Khodakovsky, a former separatist commander who turned into an open critic during the last two years, stopped publishing social media posts in May.
Taken together, all this points to a killing that might have been ordered by Moscow – but not in order to escalate or de-escalate the conflict, but rather to improve its micro-management – in this case the running of the Donetsk “People’s Republic”. The fact that Zakharchenko was assassinated and not ousted by a coup like in Luhansk also suggests that his support among the armed formations was deemed as too big.
Much of this is naturally speculation. Judging from past assassinations in the “People’s Republics”, establishing the truth will not be easy, especially as long as access to the crime scene and main suspects remains restricted by separatists and/or Russian security agencies.
