By Chris Covert
Igor Plotnitsky, former president of the breakaway republic of Lugansk, left his capital on Thursday, according to Russian and Ukrainian news accounts.
Plotnitsky's forced departure from Lugansk and Ukraine comes after a tumultuous three and a half year term as president, which saw him weather charges of murdering some of his formation commanders, and a car bomb attack against him last summer.
According to a news item which appeared in novorosinform.org, Plotnitsky left Lugansk city with a motorcade which included his personal security detail. He was allowed entry at the Izvarino Border Control Point. His security detail were not allowed to enter Russia with him, and were forced to return to Lugansk.
As a matter of disclosure, novorosinform.org is a product of former reserve FSB Colonel Igor Girkin, the Russian operative which aided in starting the rebellion that took over Lugansk and Donetsk in early 2014. Colonel Girkin said a few years back in a radio interview in St. Petersburg, that he was primarily responsible for the takeover of Crimea.
The most immediate cause for Plotnitsky's departure was when he fired the head of the Lugansk Ministry for State Security, Igor Cornet, on November 20th. Cornet refused to go.
The issue between the two appeared to be Plotnitsky's charge of a coup, which emerged just before the bombing attack on him in early August. Since that time, two more incidents took place, relative to the problems Plotnitsky was having.
The first was the murder of two Lugansk People's Republic deputies for the People's Council, a legislative body for Lugansk.
Anatoly Krivonosov and Inna Kuznetsova, a married couple, were found murdered on the night of 26 to 27 August, 2017 in a house in the Kamennobrodsky district of Lugansk. Both were fighters in the early days of the rebellion. Krivonosov was formerly commander of the Dawn battalion. At one point in 2014 during the fighting, Plotnitsky held that post as well.
Almost three weeks later came the news from a leaked transcript of comments from a closed session of the Duma by Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozakin. The transcript indicated that Russia was considering reducing its financial support of the two breakaway republics, Donetsk and Lugansk. According to a regnum.ru article, which first reported the remarks, money being used to support the two republics would be shifted to two other projects.
The first project was an infrastructure improvements for Kaliningrad, to include money to build a new ferry, and money for fiber optic cable for the region.
The second was monies for unspecified projects in the recently annexed Crimea.
According to data supplied by the Russian sponsored news website, Russkaya Vesna (Russian Spring), two days after Cornet's refusal to leave the MVD, Cornet issued a report that Plotnitsky's charges of a coup against his government contained elements that were falsified.
The two alleged leaders of the coup, Vitaly Kiselyov and Gennady Tsypkalov were detained at the time in late fall of 2016 on charges of fomenting the attack on Plotnitsky's government. Tsypkalov was allegedly tortured to death of unidentified persons working for Plotnistky, probably from the same Ministry of State Security headed by Cornet.
The report specifically named Lugansk Attorney General Aleksey Oleinik, and were confirmed by the head of investigations in the Lugansk attorney general's office, Leonid Tkachenko, effectively implicating Tkachenko in charges of falsifying criminal charges.
The issues of falsification of charges came from a statement made by Alexander Semenchenko, who was formerly an employee with the Lugansk prosecutor's office. A current official in Plotnistky's government, Minister of Agriculture Ruslan Sorokovenko, had previously uncovered misconduct within Plotnitsky's government, especially the Attorney General office, in what has been described a "grave crimes", a Russian euphemism for murder.
Among the many problems Plotitsky had was his ability to say the right things in public, and his drive to trade with the Ukrainians. Many of his problems with his, now dead, formation commanders was their grumbling that Plotnitsky was trading coal and grains to the Ukrainians for cash. Most of the commanders in Lugansk were ethnic Cossack and nearly all but a few are now dead. Plotnitsky and his government disclaim their responsibility for those deaths.
Although Plotnitsky stated on more than one occasion his desire to return Lugansk to Russian control, a news story was leaked this month, probably a planted story, that he was open to returning Lugansk to Ukrainian control.
As for the troops on the streets of the capitol of Lugansk, according to Camopedia, their camouflage pattern suggests they are Lugansk MVD, although Russian MVD troops have been known to use the pattern as well. Their AK-74s appear to be well worn suggesting they were reissued from Russian government stocks some time ago.
Chris Covert writes Eastern European/Russian military news. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
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