Russia’s proxies in the city of Donetsk on Sept. 7 appointed a new acting leader, Denis Pushilin, and scheduled illegal elections for the position of leader for Nov. 11.
Holding elections in the Russian-occupied part of the Donbas would be in violation of the Minsk peace accords and Ukrainian and international legislation.
Pushilin replaced Dmitry Trapeznikov, who was appointed after the murder of Donetsk’s long-time separatist leader Oleksandr Zakharchenko, who was assassinated by a bomb planted in a café in Donetsk on Aug. 31.
In a bizarre scene, the so-called Prosecutor General’s Office of Donetsk separatists addressed the so-called legislature of Russian proxies, saying that Trapeznikov had been appointed illegally. The legislature then fired Trapeznikov and appointed Pushilin.
Pushilin had already been the de facto leader of Russia’s Donetsk proxies in May to July 2014 before being replaced with Russian political consultant Alexander Borodai, who was then replaced by Zakharchenko. Pushilin was also the speaker of the Russian proxies’ sham legislature in Donetsk in 2015 to 2018.
He was born in the city of Makeyevka in Donetsk Oblast in 1981 and participated in running Russian fraudster Sergei Mavrodi’s MMM Ponzi scheme in Ukraine in 2011 to 2013.
The elections in Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk Oblast were initially scheduled for November but, according to sources interviewed by Novaya Gazeta, RBC and the Kyiv Post, Zakharchenko had postponed the elections for an indefinite period. Now – after Zakharchenko’s murder – elections are again expected to be held in November.
Novaya Gazeta reported on Sept. 2, citing its sources, that the Kremlin had become increasingly dissatisfied with Zakharchenko and his right-hand man and tax minister, Alexander Timofeev, in the run-up to the murder, but that Zakharchenko was reluctant to resign in November.
Specifically, the Kremlin had ordered Zakharchenko to dissolve his own military units and integrate them into Kremlin-controlled forces, while Russian intelligence agencies, ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s clan and Zakhachenko had been fighting for control over business assets and corrupt revenues, according to the sources.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a group of special investigators to Donetsk on Sept. 1 to “find and punish” the organizers of Zakharchenko’s killing, Russian website Rosbalt said in a Sept. 2 report, based on its sources in Donetsk law enforcement. The report also said the Russian investigators had ordered the release of suspects previously captured by pro-Russian troops immediately after the explosion that killed Zakharchenko.
Russia’s FSB secret service later confirmed that Russian investigators were at work in Donetsk.
Meanwhile, pictures emerged on the Internet on Sept. 7 allegedly showing Timofeev and Zakharchenko aide Alexander Kazakov together in Moscow. According to a report by Russian news agency Interfax, citing a source in the entourage of Zakharchenko, Timofeev and Kazakov went to Moscow for “security reasons” and do not plan to return to Ukraine.
