Igor Plotnitsky, the Kremlin-installed leader of the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Luhansk Oblast, resigned on Nov. 24 “due to health reasons”, the Luhansk separatists’ so-called State Security Minister Leonid Pasechnik and other separatist warlords said on Luhansk separatist television on Nov. 25.
Pasechnik said he would take over as Luhansk’s “acting” separatist leader until so-called elections.
“(Plotnitsky’s) numerous wounds and concussion had an impact,” Pasichnik said. “According to (Plotnitsky’s) decision, I’m assuming the duties of the republic’s chief until next elections.”
Plotnitsky fled to Moscow on Nov. 23 after a rival warlord, Igor Kornet – the Luhansk separatists’ so-called interior minister and an ally of Pasechnik – launched an attempt to overthrow him.
Plotnitsky was seen in a YouTube video arriving at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, carrying a small amount of luggage. His official website has also ceased to work.
This YouTube video shows Igor Plotnitsky, Luhansk separatist chief, walking at Moscow airport on Nov. 23.
Alexander Zakharchenko, Plotnitsky’s counterpart in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast, late on Nov. 21 sent troops to Luhansk to back Kornet in his conflict with Plotnitsky. This was confirmed by both Zakharchenko and Kornet.
Analysts and insiders say that Plotnitsky had crossed a red line by dismissing Kornet from his job of “interior minister” without consulting his Russian bosses.
Meanwhile, some separatist warlords and Russian politicians argued that the two Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts could soon be united due to Zakharchenko’s intervention.
Coup attempt
The latest conflict between Plotnitsky and Kornet started on Nov. 9, when Plotnitsky forced Kornet to leave his house in Luhansk and give it over to its legal owner. In a television broadcast humiliating for Kornet, Plotnitsky asked a middle-aged woman to check if her belongings were still in the house, which Kornet illegally occupied three years ago.
This YouTube video shows Igor Plotnitsky, leader of the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast, forcing Igor Kornet, another top official in Russian-occupied Luhansk, to leave the house which Kornet illegally occupied in 2014.
On Nov. 20, Plotnitsky dismissed Kornet from his job, but Kornet refused to accept his dismissal. Early next day, armed men in unmarked military uniforms blocked administrative buildings in central Luhansk.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that the armed men who supported Kornet were wearing white ribbons on their arms. White ribbons were commonly used as identifying markings by Russian soldiers who invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. However, there were no other indications that the armed men in Luhansk had come from Russia.
Imitated coup
Kornet claimed in a video address that Plotnitsky’s so-called chief of staff Irina Teitsman; Yevgeny Seliverstov, head of the so-called Interior Ministry’s security service, and Anastasia Shurkayeva, head of Luhansk separatist television, had tried to imitate a coup d’etat against Plotnitsky in September 2016 to crack down on Plotnitsky’s critics.
As a result of the imitated coup in 2016, Plotnitsky’s supporters arrested Yevgeny Tsepkalov, a former prime minister in the Russian occupying authorities, who was later found hanged in his prison cell.
Plotnitsky dismissed the accusations and accused Kornet of trying to organize a coup against him.
Plotnitsky appointed Vladimir Cherkov to replace Kornet as the so-called “interior minister” and ordered him and prosecutors to open an investigation against Kornet. But several hours later Kornet’s subordinates stormed the building of the so-called prosecutor’s office and reportedly arrested its 20 employees, including so-called Prosecutor General Vitaly Podobry, a Plotnitsky loyalist.
“Though Mr. Plotnitsky is a respected mafia boss and famous gangster, his personal bodyguards, prosecutors and similar gangs were not enough to cope with the Interior Ministry,” Igor Girkin, the former leader of a Russian special forces group in the Donbas and ex-Federal Security Service officer, said on Nov. 22, commenting on events in Luhansk.
Armed men in military fatigues block access to government buildings in eastern Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Lugansk on November 23, 2017.
/ AFP PHOTO / Aleksey FILIPPOV
The Kremlin’s role
The conflict between Plotnitsky and Kornet is thought to be connected to rivalries between different Kremlin groups.
Denis Kazansky, a blogger born in Donetsk, said that Plotnitsky is a protégé of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s advisor Vladislav Surkov, while Kornet and Pasechnik are controlled by Russia’s law enforcement agencies.
“That’s why ministers don’t submit to the heads of their republics,” he said.
According to the Kyiv Post’s sources, Paseshnik and Kornet are controlled by Russia’s Federal Security Service.
Unification?
Donetsk’s first military intervention in Luhansk Oblast’s Russian-occupied areas triggered speculation about the possible unification of the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.
Russia lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin said in an interview with Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper this unification is possible, and many are surprised the two Russian-occupied areas still exist separately.
The warlord Liuty (Severe) from the Russian-occupied city of Brianka in Luhansk Oblast even videoed an address to Zakharchenko, urging him to unite the Russian-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts under his control.
According to Kyiv Post sources, the situation in the city is calm, with most locals ignoring the armed men standing in front of government buildings. On Nov. 21 there were reports that mobile communications and TV broadcasts had been shut down, but by Nov. 23 mobile phone services were operating as normal. The local television, however, was only broadcasting on video sharing web site YouTube.
Local residents, who had survived in the conditions of lawlessness for years under separatist leaders, were more preoccupied with the coming Christmas holidays, a source in the city told the Kyiv Post on Nov. 23.
Plotnitsky’s background
Plotnistky, the head of Luhansk’s Russian-backed Zarya battalion, who before the war was a consumer rights inspector, is one of few Donbas warlords who has managed to survive the various power struggles in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast.
Since 2014, three of his rival separatist warlords – Yevgeny Ishchenko, Alexei Mozgovoi and Pavel Dryomov – have been killed. Alexander Bednov, the sham “defense minister” of the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast; Gennady Tsypkalov, its so-called “prime minister”, and Valery Bolotov, a former head of the sham republic, have also been killed or died in suspicious circumstances.
In 2016 Plotnitsky was in another standoff with Pasechnik.
Plotnitsky has acquired the image of a buffoonish showman. He has regularly broadcast meetings of his Cabinet of Ministers, chiding his subordinates in the manner of a Soviet manager for there being shortages of potatoes, or micro-managing Luhansk residents’ apartment repairs or plumbing problems.
Videos of Plotnitsky’s cabinet meetings have even gone viral on the internet and have been the frequent target of jokes.
Igor Plotnitsky (L), the self-proclaimed leader of the Moscow-backed separatist stronghold of Lugansk, speaks during press conference in Lugansk on November 22, 2017.
/ AFP PHOTO / –
However, locals also say that Plotnitsky has taken control over the main smuggling routes through Russian-occupied parts of Luhansk Oblast and took over the chain of ATB supermarkets in the area, and controls it now under the new Narodny (People’s) brand.
He is widely seen as corrupt, even among other supporters of the Russian occupation of the eastern part of the Donbas.
“After you criticized Kornet for living in another person’s house, I want to ask you, dear Mr. Plotnitsky, in which houses do you and your relatives live? In whose cars do you drive?” Nikolay Kozitsyn, a former Russian warlord who controlled the city of Antratsit in Luhansk Oblast before fleeing to Russia in 2014, said in video comments posted on YouTube on Nov. 22.
