Pro-Ukrainian partisan group claims responsibility for recent assassination of LPR official
A Ukrainian partisan group operating in the Donbas has claimed responsibility for the recent death of the head of the so-called People’s Militia of LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic), Oleg Anashchenko.
In a short video posted on the Facebook page of the Donbas Liberation front on February 5, a masked man spoke in Russian referring to Anashchenko’s assassination.
“We have warned you that if you don’t leave our land you will encounter death. The death will reach anyone who is waging this senseless war on our land. We have proven it again; we killed this monster, Anashchenko. We have disappeared from the city of Luhansk, all of us. Now you will never find us. But we will find all of you. And we will continue doing it till the order comes to our land. Keep on walking but look behind you, “ the person of the video says.
Anashchenko was killed on February 4 when His Toyota SUV exploded in the center of Luhansk, killing him and another person.
Separatist authorities accused Kyiv of committing the murder.
The Minister of the State Security of the so-called LPR stated that “this was a well-prepared and deliberate car explosion, according to one of the possible scenarios, prepared by a subversive groups of the enemy, which have recently become active in the republic”.
Ukrainian officials stated that Kyiv has nothing to do with the murder and that the assassination is likely due to a mop-up operation by Russia.
The existence of such pro-Ukrainian clandestine groups has been reported in the Ukrainian segment of social media and some Ukrainian media sources. The groups consist of residents of the Donbas. They act independently and are not subordinate to Kyiv.
Deputy of Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) Igor Mosiychuk believes that such a group is behind the assassination of a prominent separatist commander, Arsen Pavlov, known by a call-sign Motorola. Pavlov was killed by an explosion in an elevator of the building where he lived in October 2016.
“I know and I am firmly convinced, and I know people who were behind it, those who eliminated Motorola. This was not the Russian Federation. This was done by Ukrainians,” Mosiychuk stated while on air with Ukrainian Channel 5.
“Let's stop being a “bear it all” nation. Let's stop repeating that Russian FSB is eliminating them, that these [assassinations] is their [separatist] settling of scores. I cannot speak about Givi (Mikhail Tolstyh, a separatist field commander assassinated on February 8) but about Motorola I know for sure,” Mosiychuk added.