KIEV, Ukraine -- A prominent commander of the Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine was killed by a bomb, rebel leaders and Russian news reports said Monday.
Arsen Pavlov, the commander, who went by the name Motorola after the brand of walkie-talkie he preferred, was blown up as he rode the elevator in his apartment building on Sunday in Donetsk, the larger of the rebels' two urban strongholds in eastern Ukraine, Russian news accounts said.
Each side blamed the other for the killing: Ukrainian officials said Russian special forces had been purging the charismatic but unpredictable early leaders of the rebel movement, while the separatists said Ukrainian assassins were operating behind their lines.
Pavlov is the latest of about a half dozen commanders from the 2014 insurgency to be killed far from the front line. Interfax, the Russian news agency, cited a separatist official as saying that the elevator Pavlov had been using had been rigged with a bomb.
The commander's death came days before a high-level meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, aimed at reviving the peace process with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of one of the separatist movements, the Donetsk People's Republic, blamed the Kiev government and threatened on Monday to retaliate with violence in the central and western parts of Ukraine.
"When we come to you in your homes, there will be no mercy," he told local media in Donetsk. "Walk and be afraid."
While eulogized as a hero on Russian state television on Monday, Pavlov had also been a liability for Moscow over accusations that he had committed war crimes.
A Section on 10/18/2016