The leader of the pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, Alexander Zakharchenko, was killed in a bomb blast. This was reported by the authorities of the internationally unrecognized "Donetsk People's Republic" and the Ukraine was responsible for the assassination, according to the Russian agency Interfax.
The 42-year-old Zartchenko had led the so-called People's Republic since August 2014. The Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbass coal district declared their secession from Ukraine in 2014. Russia supports the separatists with a covert military operation. More than 10,000 people have been killed in the war.
Three other people had been injured in the explosion in a café in the center of Donetsk, said a spokesman for the authorities. Among the injured was the Minister of Finance of the region, Alexander Timofeyev. He was taken to the hospital.
The spokesman said that several people had been arrested, Ukrainian saboteurs and people associated with them. "You are suspected of attacking the head of the republic."
The separatist areas are formally independent, but are supplied by Moscow and tightly controlled. There has been a truce between the separatists and the Ukrainian government troops since Wednesday, but it has already been broken.
Sachartchenko was one of the signatories of the Minsk peace plan. This plans to integrate the areas into the Ukrainian state association. In return, they should be granted extensive autonomy. France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine negotiated the agreement in 2015, but it has not been implemented yet.