The bomb that killed Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) has scattered as much rumor and supposition as it has shrapnel, and it is not likely to bring peace any closer.
Zakharchenko assumed the role in August 2014 and consolidated his position with a landslide victory in dubious elections later that year. His time in office demonstrated three uncomfortable truths about this messy war: That a Donbass rebel leader is by necessity beholden to Moscow. That, at the same time, Donbass rebel leaders have their own agendas. And that these agendas unite the social and the economic, the personal and the principled, the geopolitical and the criminal.
