http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/world/europe/ukraine-rebel-arsen-pavlov-motorola-killed.html 2016-10-17 17:36:36 Bomb Kills Pro-Russian Rebel Commander in Eastern Ukraine Arsen Pavlov, known by the nom de guerre Motorola, was blown up in an elevator in Donetsk, Russian news outlets reported. === KIEV, Ukraine — A prominent commander of the Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Arsen Pavlov, who went by the nom de guerre 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, Each side blames the other for the killing: Ukrainian officials said that Russian special forces had been purging the Mr. Pavlov is the latest of about half a dozen commanders from the 2014 insurgency to be killed far from the front line. Interfax, the Russian news agency, cited a separatist official saying that the elevator Mr. Pavlov had been using had been rigged with an improvised explosive device. Mr. Pavlov’s assassination threatened to escalate the conflict in Ukraine that has been the bloodiest in Eastern Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s. If the violence intensifies, it would inflame an irritant to 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, the so-called Normandy format. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has not confirmed his participation in those talks. Aleksandr 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 news media in Donetsk. “Walk and be afraid.” While eulogized as a hero on Russian state television on Monday, Mr. Pavlov had also been a liability for Moscow over accusations that he had committed war crimes. The European Union had placed Mr. Pavlov, a Russian citizen, on sanctions lists after he boasted in an interview of shooting 15 Ukrainian soldiers who were taken prisoner during A Ukrainian member of Parliament, Maksim Burbak, said on Monday that Russian agents might have killed Mr. Pavlov to remove this problem and to justify “The executioner and idiot, the Russian fighter Motorola,” is dead, Mr. Burbak said. “This is a fitting end for a killer and moral monster who bragged of killing our 15 soldiers.” The assassination, though, “could be used as a pretext to carry out terrorist acts in Kiev and other territories of Ukraine,” he added. A spokesman for the Ukrainian military, Andriy Lysenko, denied involvement and said the killing had cheated Ukrainian justice of the “inevitable punishment of life imprisonment,” for Mr. Pavlov. “He simply got lucky,” Mr. Lysenko said.