More than four years after they took up arms against the Ukrainian government and seized a southeastern chunk of the country, Russian-led separatists appear no closer to their dream of making their enclaves part of Russia.
The separatist territory — which includes the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known together as Donbas — is reeling from the assassination of Alexander Zakharchenko. The 42-year-old “head of the People’s Republic of Donetsk” was killed with a bodyguard on Aug. 31 by a bomb hidden in a lamp at a restaurant there.
