Former militant commander and Lugansk political deputy Vitaly Kiselev, was killed in Lugansk police custody Thursday, according to a Russian language news account.
The korrespondent.net news account said that Kiselev was a prime suspect in the bombing attack on Lugansk president Igor Plotnitskiy in August, 2016.
Quoting a BBC report, Lugansk prosecutors conducted an interrogation that the source said was "overdone," which led to Vitaly Kiselev's death.
Despite early denials that the attack was by Ukrainian operatives, Kiselev's death represents a long line of deaths of Lugansk separatist commanders beginning in January of 2015. At that time, a deputy commander of a separatist military unit Aleksandr Bednov and six others were killed in an attack by police In Georgievka, which is a suburb south of Lugansk city. Reports at the time said police used a thermobaric rocket to hit the vehicle Bednov was traveling. At the time of the attack Bednov was chief of staff of the Lugansk 4th Separate Rifle Brigade. He was said to be under suspicion for murder, rape and robbery.
Vitaly Kiselev was said to be a communist, and was one of several commanders, including most of the Cossack military formation commanders said to be Stalinists. Those commanders expected the political changes after the takeover by Russian speaking militants would include communization of agriculture. Nearly every one of those commanders died in violent attacks. Several other minor Cossack formation commanders also died in Donetsk as well. Separatists in both Lugansk and Donetsk say that those deaths can be traced to Plotnitskiy.
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