Cafe bombing kills separatist leader in eastern Ukraine. Suspects in custody.
Alexander Zakharchenko, the prime minister of eastern Ukraine’s self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), was fatally wounded in a bombing on Friday. The explosion reportedly ripped through the “Separatist” cafe on Pushkin Street in Donetsk, just around the corner from Zakharchenko’s residence.
The explosion also injured several others, including Alexander Timofeyev, the rebel republic's finance minister.
DNR officials told the news agency Interfax that they have already apprehended several suspects (“Ukrainian saboteurs and related persons”) who were discovered in a nearby car.
Early theories about who killed Zakharchenko
- Ukraine's National Security Service says the assassination was likely either a special operation by Russian forces or infighting by mobsters among the separatists.
- Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova says the “Kyiv regime” is probably to blame.
- Nikolai Kovalev, the former director of Russia's Federal Security Agency, thinks the Ukrainian National Security Service orchestrated the bombing to serve the interests of officials in Kyiv.
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