DNR’s former leaders continue to follow Kremlin’s plans
The Ukrainian army’s successful offensive operations in Donbas prompted the replacement of the self-proclaimed separatists’ leadership as the Kremlin wanted to avoid imprisonment of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) officials aware of illegal actions in eastern Ukraine, analysts said.
“The reason why the Kremlin withdrew its puppets is a worsening of military confrontation and successful offensive operations by the Ukrainian army,” Olexandr Kluzhev, political analyst of NGO civil network Opora (Support), told SETimes. “The Russian leadership was just scared that people who have a mass of information concerning actions of the Russian secret service in the east of Ukraine could be captured. [Alexander] Boroday [former prime minister of DNR] was an FSB career officer and he could be a promising prisoner for Ukraine.”
In early August, Boroday and self-proclaimed DNR defence minister Igor Girkin left their positions. They have a long-standing friendship and both work for the Russian security services. The conflict in Ukraine wasn’t the first such experience for both Girkin and Boroday.
Boroday, a 42-year-old Russian FSB major-general who’s been leading separatists for several months, has worked under the cover of a journalist and a political consultant in the past. In the early 1990s he fought in Transnistria with rebels, helping them to separate that area from the Republic of Moldova. In 2000, during the war in Chechnya, where he worked under the cover of a journalist, he promoted a Russian ideology that “Chechen separatists” should have been destroyed.
“All these take place within the Russian idea and the expansion of the Russian world,” analyst Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta Centre for Political Studies in Kyiv, told SETimes.
According to Sergiy Garmash, editor-in-chief of the Donetsk news agency Ostrov, Boroday continues managing Kremlin-backed Donetsk militants.
“Boroday was only formally removed,” Garmash told SETimes. “He still influences the situation. I have insider information from the DNR leadership that Boroday still makes all the decisions and [Alexander] Zaharchenko [the new prime minister of the self-proclaimed republic] was set just for the picture. I think that Putin wants to present it as an internal conflict. Therefore, people with apparent ties to Russia were removed from public positions. After all, Girkin and Boroday have Russian citizenship.”
However, Girkin’s mission in Donbas seems to be over, analysts said.
According to the Ukrainian Security Service, Girkin is a colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff. The active phase of a military confrontation in Donbas started after Girkin showed up there. In addition, he was the first to announce that his fighters shot down a Ukrainian military transport aircraft, which later turned out to be the Malaysian passenger Boeing.
“Before his appearance in Donbas, the region had a claim to Kyiv, but there was no war. And look what happened when he came here,” Garmash said. “Girkin sincerely believed the idea of Russian world and the historical mission of Russia.”
After the war in Transnistria, Girkin went to Yugoslavia. In the ranks of the Serbs he participated in the ethnic cleansing and killing of Bosnian Muslims. Girkin described details of the conflict in his memoir, “Bosnian Diary,” published in 1999.
“It was the first time we knew the Serbian way of attack. The group of 20 men (including three Russians) came to the small village of Zakrsnitsa. Found six Muslims. Fire from three machine guns, grenade launchers and small arms was opened on the village from a distance of 300 metres. Two Muslims were shot dead. One was killed by a sniper,” Girkin wrote.
In mid-summer, the Bosnian edition of Klix published photographs from that period, where the 23 year-old Girkin wears military uniform with an assault rifle and stands next to two other mercenaries in Visegrad.
“With his skills and tendencies, Girkin clearly stands out even from the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. He appeared there in the moment of crisis, when no one wanted and was ready to take up arms. His task was worsening the situation,” Kluzhev said.
Experts said it appears the Kremlin already has more missions for Boroday and Girkin.
“Boroday is the deputy head of the FSB, where will he go?” Garmash said. “We now have information that people he recruited have started in Moldova to aggravate the situation there with Transnistria. Therefore, they are not going anywhere. Putin needs such people.”
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