Alexander Vladimirovich Zakharchenko
uk, Олекса́ндр Володи́мирович Заха́рченко, translit=Oleksandr Volodymyrovych Zakharchenko (26 June 1976 – 31 August 2018) was a Ukrainian separatist leader who was the head of state and Prime Minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, a self-proclaimed state and rebel group which declared independence from

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

on 11 May 2014. Zakharchenko was appointed Prime Minister in August 2014 after his predecessor Alexander Borodai resigned, and went on to win the early November 2014 election for the position. Zakharchenko was killed in 2018 when a bomb exploded in a café that he frequently visited.

Early and personal life

Zakharchenko graduated from technical college. He then worked as a mine electrician before opening a business in the mining industry. He studied with the law institute of the Interior Ministry. He was godfather to :Alexander Timofeyev's ( ru) children.

Political career

In 2010, Zakharchenko became head of the Donetsk branch of OPLOT, a pro-Russian militant organization established in

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Yevgeny Zhilin. On 16 April 2014, 20 members of Oplot (including Zakharchenko), armed with clubs, rifles and some automatic weapons, occupied the offices of Donetsk city council, demanding a referendum on the status of the region. By April 2014, he was the commander of a local militia in Donetsk ( Oplot). The members of this militia were mainly from civic and martial arts groups. Zakharchenko was appointed the "military commandant of Donetsk" on 16 May 2014. From May 2014, Zakharchenko played a leading role in the insurgency against Ukraine's central government. On 22 July 2014, he was wounded in the arm during a fight against Ukrainian government forces at

Kozhevnia Kozhevnia ( uk, Кожевня) is a rural settlement in Horlivka Raion, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. It is part of Dmytrivka rural council and as of 2016 was still on file at Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо ...

. In late August 2014, the DPR Ministry of Defence announced Zakharchenko's promotion to

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

. Zakharchenko succeeded Alexander Borodai as Prime Minister on 7 August 2014. Borodai then became the DPR Deputy Prime Minister. According to Borodai, Donbas native Zakharchenko succeeded him for a Russian government effort "to try to show the West that the uprising was a grassroots phenomenon". Borodai claims that he personally recommended Zakharchenko as Prime Minister. In September 2014, Zakharchenko was the lead negotiator for the DPR at the

Minsk Protocol The Minsk agreements were a series of international agreements which sought to end the Donbas war fought between armed Russian separatist groups and Armed Forces of Ukraine, with Russian regular forces playing a central part. The first, know ...

, which agreed to a peace plan for the

war in Donbas War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regula ...

. During the 2014 Donetsk parliamentary elections, Zakharchenko won the prime ministership with 78.93% of the vote. The day after the elections, the head of Oplot organization Evgeniy Zhylin gave an interview to the Russian television channel

Dozhd TV Rain ( rus, Дождь, Dozhd, p=ˈdoʂtʲ, a=Ru-дождь (doʂtʲ).ogg; stylized ДОДЬ) is an independent Russian television channel. It was launched in 2010 in Russia, and since 2022 was based in Latvia. It focuses on news, discussion ...

where he told how Zakharchenko was appointed as a head of Donetsk branch of Oplot and how his candidacy as a leader of the DPR was promoted from Moscow. In February 2015, Zakharchenko, representing the DPR, agreed to the Minsk II peace treaty, calling it a "major victory for the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics". After signing the Minsk agreements, Zakharchenko stated that should the Ukrainian authorities violate the terms of the agreements, fail to withdraw from the border, or fail to release the Donetsk POWs, he would take

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Debaltseve. Zakharchenko stated that he had no intention on adhering to the ceasefire within the Debaltseve region. He was wounded in the leg on 17 February 2015 during the closing stages of the Battle of Debaltseve. In January 2016, he described the battle in July 2014 for the village of

as "a milestone for me", saying that it was "our first offensive. Unfortunately, in the course of fighting we practically destroyed this village. By burning down houses, we saved our lives and the lives of our people."

Political positions

During the

2014 Donbas parliamentary elections The 2014 Donbas general elections were held on 2 November 2014 by the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, which were at that time both members of the now defunct Novorossiya confederation.Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

." Zakharchenko said this was feasible because Donetsk is very rich, "like the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at ...

he Donetsk people He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

have coal,

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sci ...

, natural gas

. . ._. may refer to: * (._.), an emoticon representing sadness or boredom * The letter R in Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, ca ...

�� e difference between hemand the Emirates is they don't have a war

n the Emirates N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...

and onetsk does" Zakharchenko promised to build "a normal state, a good one, a just one. onetskboys died for this, civilians are still being killed for this".East Ukraine separatists hold vote to gain legitimacy, promise normalcy

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

(30 October 2014) Zakharchenko held positions in keeping with conservative sexual ethics. For example, he stated: “…this generation is being raised on democracy, which implies that a family can have two fathers or two mothers. To me, this is categorically unacceptable.” Zakharchenko was in favour of the death penalty. In an interview with Zakhar Prilepin on Tsargrad TV in late 2016, he said that Britain must be conquered, which would usher in a "Golden Age for Russia". Prilepin, a Russian writer and political activist of the

National Bolshevik Party The National Bolshevik Party (NBP; russian: Национал-большевистская партия), also known as the Nazbols (russian: нацболы), operated from 1993 to 2007 as a Russian political party with a political program of Nat ...

, stated that Zakharchenko was among the top five most popular politicians in Ukraine and could be elected the

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...

. In 2016, Prilepin published a book in which Alexander Zakharchenko is the protagonist.

Human rights abuses

In October 2014, Zakharachenko declared that he can shoot at any Ukrainian city with a clear conscience. In an interview he said: "I don't care at all. If I don't shoot in Avdiivka because my people live there, then I can shoot in any other Ukrainian city, and I won't feel sorry for the civilians or anyone else. This is a different war. You came to kill us, just to destroy us. So you will get what you are doing here". During the war in Donbas there were many cases of forced disappearances in the Donetsk People's Republic. Zakharchenko said that his forces detained up to five "Ukrainian subversives" every day. It was estimated that about 632 people were under illegal detention by separatist forces by 11 December 2014. Freelance journalist Stanislav Aseyev was abducted on 2 June 2017 under espionage charges. At first, the ''de facto'' DNR government denied knowing his whereabouts, but on 16 July an agent of the DNR's Ministry of State Security confirmed that Aseyev was in their custody and that he was suspected of espionage. Independent media was not allowed to report from the DNR-controlled territory. Amnesty International demanded that Zakharchenko release Aseyev. He was released in 2019.Journalist Stanislav Aseev returns to Ukraine within prisoner swap
112 Ukraine (29 December 2019)

Death

Zakharchenko was killed by a bomb explosion in the café "Separ" ( Ukrainian slang for "separatist") on Pushkin Boulevard in Donetsk, on 31 August 2018. Reports say DNR's finance minister Alexander Timofeyev was also wounded in the blast. The DNR and the Russian Federation blamed the Ukrainian government authorities. Officials in Kyiv rejected the accusations, stating that Zakharchenko's death was the result of civil strife in the DNR. Initial reports say that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Trapeznikov was appointed acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic. Funeral and memorial services were scheduled for 2 September, in the

Donetsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after A. Solovyanenko was established in 1932 in Donetsk on the basis of fit-up theatre of Right-bank Ukraine. Since 15 March 1932 the theatre was transferred to Donetsk theatre group The fi ...

. A three-day mourning period was declared on 1 September, with the start of the new academic year in the territory being postponed until 4 September. Russian President

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime m ...

sent his condolences to Zakharchenko's family, calling his death a "contemptible murder". The Russian Foreign Ministry's official spokesperson

Maria Zakharova Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova (russian: Мария Владимировна Захарова; born 24 December 1975) is the Director of the Information and Press Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (Spokes ...

blamed Ukraine for the death, claiming that it is "driving its country to the verge of an all-out disaster at increasingly faster speeds". The acting head of the Luhansk People's Republic,

Leonid Pasechnik Leonid Ivanovich Pasechnik (russian: Леони́д Ива́нович Па́сечник; born 15 March 1970) is a Russian politician is serving as the acting head of the Lugansk People's Republic from 4 October, 2022. He served as Presiden ...

, paid tribute to Zakharchenko at a memorial service in the Republic, saying that the "banner of struggle, lifted by Alexander Zakharchenko, will never fall". He said that the Donbas region "will not forgive Zakharchenko's murder". On 29 September 2022, law enforcement agencies of the Luhansk People's Republic reportedly provided Ria Novosti with the wiretap between the

Security Service of Ukraine The Security Service of Ukraine ( uk, Служба безпеки України, translit=Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy}) or SBU ( uk, СБУ, link=no) is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainia ...

officer Oleksandr Kiyashchenko and his agent, in which he tells that the murderer received 5 million rubles.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zakharchenko, Alexander 1976 births 2010s murders in Ukraine 2018 crimes in Ukraine 2018 deaths 2018 murders in Europe Deaths by improvised explosive device in Ukraine Male murder victims Military personnel from Donetsk People of Anti-Maidan People of the Donetsk People's Republic People murdered in Ukraine Pro-Russian people of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine Pro-Russian people of the war in Donbas Military personnel killed in war in Donbas Russian nationalists Terrorist incidents in Europe in 2018 Terrorist incidents in Ukraine in the 2010s Unsolved murders in Ukraine Assassinated Ukrainian politicians Russian individuals subject to the European Union sanctions Individuals designated as terrorist by the government of Ukraine Ukrainian collaborators with Russia Russian military personnel of the war in Donbas Assassinated Russian politicians Politicians from Donetsk Political violence in Ukraine