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On August 31, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, president of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in southeast Ukraine’s Donbass region was assassinated. 

DPR and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) broke away from Ukraine after the Obama regime’s coup, replacing democratic governance with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.

Was it an extrajudicial assassination ordered by Trump hardliners, which took Zakharchenko’s life, murdered by a blast in central Donetsk?

His bodyguard was also killed, nine others injured, including DPR Finance Minister Alexander Timofeev, reportedly in grave condition.

Acting DPR Prime Minister Dmitry Trapeznikov replaced Zakharchenko. According to the deceased president’s advisor Alexander Kazalov, a number of suspects were detained.

A state of emergency was declared, border checkpoints closed. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed Kiev for the incident, saying:

“Instead of implementing the Minsk agreements and looking for means to settle the internal conflict, Kiev’s party of war is implementing a terrorist scenario and is aggravating the already difficult situation in the region. Without fulfilling its peace promises, they decided to launch a bloody slaughter.”

Undermining the Minsk Peace Agreement

Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Zakharchenko’s murder a well-planned “blatant provocation aimed at (further) undermining implementation of the Minsk Agreement in eastern Ukraine … Given the current situation, it’s impossible to talk about the nearest meetings in the Normandy format (involving Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) like many of our European partners would have wanted. It is a serious situation that must be analyzed. We are doing it right now.”

Minsk was dead on arrival like earlier ceasefire agreements – not worth the paper it’s written on because Washington wants endless conflict, not resolution – ongoing for over four years. Russia and Donbass alone fully observed Minsk principles.

Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) spokeswoman Elena Gitlyanskaya said Kiev had nothing to do with it.

Putin called Zakharchenko a true people’s leader, a brave and resolute person, a patriot of Donbass,” adding:

“The vile murder of Alexander Zakharchenko is another evidence: those who chose the path of terror, violence, intimidation, do not want to seek a peaceful, political solution to the conflict, do not want to conduct a real dialogue with the inhabitants of the southeast.”

“They make a dangerous bet on the destabilization of the situation, to put the people of Donbass on their knees. This is not going to work.”

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.