RFE/RL: Second person dies in Donetsk cafe blast that killed separatist leader Zakharchenko

Men stand outside the restaurant Separ on Sept. 1, in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, the day after Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), was killed in a bomb blast. Zakharchenko, the main separatist leader in eastern Ukraine was killed in a bomb blast in the centre of rebel hub Donetsk on Aug. 31, his spokeswoman said, the most prominent rebel victim in the four-year conflict. An AFP journalist at the scene said police had cordoned off the block where the blast occurred.

Photo by AFP

The leadership of the pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine has been thrown into disarray after the head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic was killed in an explosion at a cafe designed to honor the separatists.

The death on August 31 of Aleksandr Zakharchenko at the Separ cafe — a separatist-themed establishment featuring camouflage netting hanging from its eaves — drove the separatist council into an emergency meeting and angered the separatists’ backers in Moscow.