Ukrainian separatist warlord assassinated by land-mine

Alexei Mozgovoy, the commander of a unit called the Prizrak or Ghost Brigade, was killed on Saturday night as he drove through a secure rebel-held area several miles from the front line.

Rebel officials said the killers had exploded a mine near his Toyota 4x4 before opening fire from at least three machine guns, killing him along with his press secretary, two guards, and the driver.

In a statement carried by Life News, a Russian tabloid close to Moscow’s security services, surviving Prirzrak Brigade leaders blamed the attack on Ukrainian commandos, and called on supporters "not to spread crazy rumours on social networks or in the media.”

"The main [line of enquiry] is that this was an attack by enemy saboteurs. If anyone saw anything please come to the LNR, the DNR, or us at the Brigade,” a commander said.

An attack by Ukrainian government forces would also be a breach of the country's theoretical ceasefire.

Other separatists also scrambled to avert talk of a rift after the killing, with Mr Plotnitsky describing the killing as "an attack on all defenders of the LNR."

"I mourn with all who knew Alexei Mozgovoy, walked with him shoulder-to-shoulder," he said in comments carried by Russian agencies.

One Ukrainian field commander, Alexander Gladky, head of a unit that calls itself the "Shadows", also appeared to take responsibility for the killing, describing it in detail in Facebook posts with details implying his men had carried out of the attack.

However, there were contradictions in his accounts, and the killing follows months of tension between Mr Mozgovoy and the central separatist leadership, sparking speculation that he was the victim of an inside quarrel.

Unconfirmed reports on Sunday suggested Prizrak Brigade had been disarmed by other separatists following the murder.

Mr Mozgovoy, 40, seized control of the town of Alchevsk, 25 miles west of Luhansk, after a separatist uprising broke out in eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014.

He ran the town largely independently of the central separatist leadership and was reputed to have particularly strained relations with Igor Plotnitsky, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, or LNR, to which Prizrak Brigade is nominally loyal.

He was also an outspoken critic of the central separatist leadership and openly criticised the Minsk Peace agreements, which he described as doomed to fail.

He had survived several previous assassination attempts, and in recent interviews said he was "ready” for more.

He sustained light injuries in the last assassination attempt in March, when bombs exploded near his motorcade as he returned from a meeting with Mr Plotnitsky.