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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| From Kremlin-armed Donbas militants to millionaire criminal bosses |
| 2015-08-25 |
| This builds on something I reported on yesterday: the duly elected president of Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko may be on the way out. He is currently in Russia, reportedly for a "sit down", presumably with his benefactors in the Russian FSB. What I didn't know until I read this article was that the leader of the "Vostok" Battalion, Aleksandr Khodakovsky could be Zakharchenko's replacement. What is most interesting is how this times with articles I have written over the nexus of Ukrainian and Russian organized crime in smuggling in western Ukraine and the Donbas area. Several incidents point to that nexus with organized crime, and with Khodakovsky as well. Russian journalist Pavel Kanygin calls them “Donbosses” – the Kremlin-backed militant leaders of the so-called ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ whose leadership of “terrorists” (his word) armed and funded from Moscow has enabled them to amass millions. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #1 They have their gov't bosses, we have ours. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2015-08-25 03:13 |