International News

DONETSK, Ukraine, Oct 17, (APP/AFP) – Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebels announced three days of mourning on Monday after notorious rebel commander Arseny Pavlov, known as “Motorola”, was killed in a lift bombing. The 33-year-old Russian died late on Sunday when a homemade device exploded in the lift at the entrance to his block of flats in the de facto rebel capital Donetsk, separatist authorities said. It was the latest in a string of assassinations of insurgent commanders, with rebel chief Alexander Zakharchenko blaming it on Kiev, describing it as a declaration of “war” by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. But other separatists told AFP the bombing may have been part of an internal power struggle among the rebels, who Kiev and the West say are directed by Russia. “Either it’s an operation staged by the Ukrainian services or it was one of us,” said a fighter in the Sparta battalion which had been led by Pavlov.