The assassination of a Kremlin-backed separatist leader in East Ukraine has jeopardised Western-brokered peace agreements and risked fuelling tensions in the war-torn region, Russia has warned.
Alexander Zakharchenko, 42, was murdered in a bombing at a cafe in Donetsk on Friday in an attack that killed his bodyguard and injured 12 more, including his finance minister.
The Kremlin and Mr Zakharchenko’s fellow rebels have blamed Kiev for the bombing but Ukraine insists the attack was the result of internal fighting and Russian meddling in the breakaway region. Ukrainian media reported the bomb was in a nearby car.
Russian officials led by President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the former mine electrician’s murder would further derail the Ukraine peace deal brokered by Germany and France in the Belarussian capital Minsk in 2015.
The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic was a signatory of the agreement and is the highest profile victim from the Moscow backed side in the four year conflict.
More than 10,000 people have been killed since the rebel insurgency broke out in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in April 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Vladmir Putin, the president of Russia, praised Mr Zakharchenko, whose death sparked an outpouring of public grief among his supporters, and branding the killing a “dastardly act”.
Four years of war in Europe: A photo dispatch from the frontline in Ukraine
Germany and France have sought in recent months to revive the stalled peace process.
Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that the killing derailed the Minsk deal and ruled out any meetings with France, Germany and Ukraine to discuss the crisis in the so-called Normandy Format.
"This is a serious situation that has to be analysed,” he said.
Alexander Emochenko/Reuters
"This is no doubt a provocation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Zakharchenko’s death will certainly lead to increased tensions in the region".
The murder undermined conditions for the "start of the implementation" of the so-called Minsk peace agreements, he said.
On Friday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the slaying has put “a big question mark over the entire process".
Rebel authorities declared a three-day period of mourning and delayed the start of a new school year until Tuesday.
Valentin Sprinchak /Tass
The acting head of the region, Dmitry Trapeznikov, claimed on Friday that local authorities had detained several suspects and they confirmed that the blast was "an act of sabotage by Ukraine".
Mr Zakharchenko, who liked to sport khaki military fatigues, led the Russian-backed insurgents for four years, becoming rebel prime minister in August 2014 before being elected the first president of the Donetsk republic later that year.
He sold his business to finance the rebels and took part in the storming of the Donetsk regional administration building that launched the conflict in 2014.
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