Russian top officials have claimed that the murder of Alexander Zakharchenko, the separatist leader of the Russian-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast, harms the Minsk peace process.
The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany have been unsuccessfully trying to enforce the agreements reached in Minsk, Belarus to halt the war in the Donbas since 2015.
On Aug. 31, Zakharchenko was killed in a bomb blast in a Donetsk cafe. The Kremlin called his assassination a terrorist act and placed the blame on the Ukrainian special services.
“This is chaos which annuls all step that Russia and the global community have been taking to stop the war in eastern Ukraine,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian federal parliament, according to the Russian Interfax news agency on Sept. 1.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Zakharchenko’s murder “a provocation aimed at disrupting the Minsk agreements,” according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
“In the current situation, it is impossible to talk about upcoming meetings in the Normandy format like many of our European partners want,” Lavrov said on Sept. 1. “This is a serious situation that we need to analyze.”
The Ukrainian authorities have not yet responded to these statements.
In June, the foreign ministers of the Normandy Four — Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia — met in Berlin. Their meeting focused on establishing a ceasefire in the Donbas, the release of Ukrainian hostages held in Russia and on Russian-occupied territories, and a potential United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Ukrainian political expert Oleksiy Holobutsky opined that Kremlin is the one who benefits from Zakahrchenko’s death.
“Had they not killed Zakharchenko, they would have killed someone else, they would have shelled Donetsk,” he said on Sept. 1 in an interview with the Pryamyi TV channel. “The Minsk agreements have become disadvantageous for them. They don’t want Normandy talks and are willing to drag [the process] out.”
SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak denied any involvement in Zakharchenko’s murder.
“In my view, it was expected. It is a purge of those who helped Russian troops enter Donbas in 2014, who helped with the creation of the pseudo-republics,” he said in a statement released on Sept. 1. “We reckon it is a purge of those who know too much, who have blood on their hands, and who are not needed as witnesses.”
Others have speculated that Zakharchenko could have been killed in a “criminal confrontation between separatists” over business interests.
Fearing for his life, the separatist leader of Russian-controlled Luhansk Oblast, Sergey Kozlov, has left the territory of his self-proclaimed republic, according to a post on his Facebook page.
