Plotnitsky officially resigns as head of self-declared Luhansk Republic

Igor Plotnitsky, the former head of the self-declared
Luhansk People’s Republic, formally announced his resignation on Nov. 24 after
serving in that post for three years. The 53-year-old career bureaucrat cited
health concerns. The next day, the republic’s people’s council appointed as
acting head Leonid Pasichnyk, who had previously served as state security
minister. Forces from both the Donetsk People’s Republics and the Russian
Federation arrived in recent days to provide security for the transition in
leadership, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies reported. Recall, a conflict
erupted a week ago between Plotnitsky and Igor Kornet, the republic’s interior
minister.

Zenon Zawada: Despite
some Ukrainian authorities dismissing the conflict as a petty property dispute,
we believe the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is correct in identifying the role of
competing Russian intelligence agencies. In particular, the rivals have been
identified as those loyal to Putin advisor Vladislav Surkov, the Federal
Security Service (FSB) and the Armed Forces.

We don’t see anything changing in the big picture
as Plotnitsky will serve as a government ombudsman, given that he signed the
Minsk Accords on behalf of his self-declared republic. While there are rumors
of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics uniting, we see Putin having a
greater advantage by keeping them separate and easier to manipulate.