Who is next in chain of assassinations of separatist leaders
The sudden death of the former head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Valery Bolotov, and the assassination of the Chief of the LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic) People’s Militia, Colonel Oleg Anaschenko, in a car explosion, are connected with purges that have been taking place in the separatist republic after the failed coup.
In September 2016, during interrogations, the Deputy Commander of the LPR People’s Militia, Vitaly Kiselev (call sign Communist), who was detained on charges of the attempted murder of the head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Igor Plotnitsky, testified as to the involvement of a number of people in an attempted coup.
Among those who were allegedly involved in the coup Vitaly Kiselev named Oleg Anaschenko, Valery Bolotov, the LPR Minister of Agriculture and Food, Sergey Litvin, and the former Chairman of the Supreme Council of the LPR, Aleksey Karyakin. Their involvement is precisely why Anaschenko, Bolotov, and Litvin were killed.
The leader of the Don Cossacks, Mykola Kozitsyn, and separatist field commander, Igor Bezler, also known as “Bes” could become the next victims. Bezler has recently been charged with the theft of UAH 196 million hryvnia ($7.28M USD). In turn, Kozitsyn was accused of betraying the Don Cossacks’ interests.
On the 7th of February, the media reported that the Cossack Parliament held a congress in Rostov at which Kozitsyn was deemed a traitor to the Cossacks’ interests and received a vote of no confidence. Before that, Mykola Kozitsyn urged the Cossacks to return to the Donbas and fight the Ukrainian Armed Forced. In turn, the Cossacks stated that Kozitsyn himself is in no hurry to go to war in the Donbas but wants to send them to death.
In the document published on the web site of the Cossack Information and Analytical Center, Kozitsyn is rebuked for cowardice during the hostilities in the Donbas and is openly blamed for not leading the Cossacks out of the Donbas at a critical moment, but having fled to Russia himself instead. The document points out that under these circumstances a decent ataman either would die in a battle or commit suicide.
It is reported that Mykola Kozitsyn has cancer, which means that his death could be explained as a result of a fatal disease or suicide.
When the research department of Prava Sprava public initiative published the information about Kozitsyn’s fatal illness, his henchmen attacked the Editor-in-Chief of the Luhansk newspaper, Voskhod, Lyubov Korsakova, who was the organizer of three international anti-fascist meetings in the territory of the Donbas. Kozitsyn assumed that Korsakova is the source of the information leak and she paid the price for it.
In 2014, the so-called Cossacks, led by Mykola Kozitsyn, actively supported the pro-Russian forces in the Donbas and participated in the seizure of administrative buildings. At that time, the Cossacks and the separatists experienced serious differences. In particular, the Cossacks had a conflict with the late separatist leader, Valery Bolotov over the possession of weapons. Bolotov accused the Cossacks of looting and treason.
It is notable that the prominent separatist field commander, Mikhail Tolstykh, call sign Givi, was also accused of financial fraud, the betrayal of the interests of the Somalia battalion, and the deaths of multiple soldiers in his battalion near Avdiivka before he had been killed. In addition, the murder of the Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Sergey Kozlov, whom Plotnitsky regards as one of his main competitors, is quite possible.
The confrontation between Plotnitsky and the Minister of State Security of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, will continue in the Luhansk People’s Republic.
In the Donetsk People’s Republic, the tensions between the leader of the Republic, Aleksander Zakharchenko, and the former Secretary of the Security Council of the DPR, Alexander Khodakovsky, are also likely to persist.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of UAWire. The article has been published with the permission of the author.