Russia blames Ukraine for executing a separatist leader… but as one commenter on Reddit.com noted: “they recently mentioned on the Popular Front/Jake Hanrahan podcast that Russia isn’t really fond of Zakharchenko and will like push to replace him soon…” So it could be Ukraine getting rid of him, or Russia. Either way, Russia could choose to use the assassination as a cause for war and attempt to annex more of the Russian-speaking southeastern portion of Ukraine.
The map below shows the percentage of people whose native language is Ukrainian in the nations various regions. The north and west are more Ukrainian; many parts of the south and east are more Russianized. In 2014 Crimea (the bottom region with “10.1%”) was already annexed back to Russia (it was Russian before Khrushchev “gifted” it from Russia to Ukraine – both then part of the Soviet Union – in 1954.)
Wikipedia notes: “The War in Donbass is an armed conflict in the Donbass region of Ukraine. From the beginning of March 2014, protests by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, commonly collectively called the “Donbass”, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement. These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation (February to March 2014), and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government.”
The region has been pretty quiet for a few years. That could be about to change.
from an article in Russia Today:
“An explosion that rocked a cafe in central Donetsk city, in eastern Ukraine, has killed Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, and injured several other top officials.
“The head of the DPR, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, has died as a result of a terrorist act,” a spokesperson of the self-proclaimed republic’s administration told journalists, revealing no details of the incident.
“An improvised explosive device was planted inside the café … right near the entrance,” Aleksandr Kazakov, an advisor to the DPR leader, told RT, adding that the killers apparently knew that Zakharchenko would arrive at the café and were “waiting” for him. A state of emergency has been imposed, Kazakov said, adding that borders with both Ukraine and Russia were sealed as the security services are “actively searching for the potential perpetrators.”
One of Zakharchenko’s deputies also sustained severe injuries in the blast while several bodyguards died in the incident, Kazakov said. He added that Zakharchenko died at the scene as well, contrary to the earlier reports suggesting he was injured and succumbed to his wounds in a hospital.
There is “every reason to believe” that Zakharchenko’s murder was orchestrated by Kiev, which “has repeatedly resorted to such methods to get rid of dissidents and undesirables,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.
“Instead of abiding by the Minsk Agreements and seeking ways to resolve the internal [Ukrainian] conflict, the Kiev warmongers opted for a terrorist scenario, thus exacerbating an already tense situation in the region,” she added. The Ukrainian security service, the SBU, has denied involvement in the killing of the DPR head.
Zakharchenko headed the self-proclaimed republic since November 2014 when a crisis broke out in Ukraine following a coup d’état that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The Eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk engaged in open conflict with Kiev since they refused to accept the new government, following the 2014 coup, and established the self-proclaimed republics. He previously survived several assassination attempts.”
One more hot spot where war could erupt, and a region Nostradamus specifically mentioned* in his prophecies as a critical turning point in regard to WWIII.
*Nostradamus said Boristhenes would give way, the Latin name for the Dnieper River that runs through Kiev and divides Ukraine east and west.
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