Ukraine crisis: Mayor of second city Gennady Kernes fights for life after murder attempt is blamed on Kremlin The day began with the police station and administration building Konstantinovska being overrun; next the airport at Kramatorsk was attacked with rocket propelled grenades and then the mayor of Kharkiv was shot in the back. It ended in a vicious ambush on a demonstration in Donetsk. While America and the European Union impose new sanctions on Russia, violence and turmoil continues unabated in eastern Ukraine.
The attempted murder of Gennady Kernes, the mayor of the country’s second-largest city, raised fears that prominent public figures were being targeted for assassination. Last night he was “fighting for his life”, said his spokesman, after emergency surgery, with blame for the shooting leveled at both the Kremlin and extreme right wing groups.
Mr Kernes, a colourful character who regularly posted photographs of himself on social media taking part in sporting activities, was gunned down while he was out cycling, jogging, or swimming according to differing accounts of what took place. Valeriy Boyko, the director of Surgery institute in Kiev, where he was being treated, said the mayor “had suffered a very serious wound with a number of organs damaged”.
The 64-year-old billionaire businessman had been a fervent supporter of Victor Yanukovych, the overthrown president, and a fierce critic of Kiev’s Maidan, banning similar protests in Kharkiv under an emergency order which had been put in place to “avoid the spread of infectious diseases”.
Since then, however, he had sought to distance himself from Mr Yanukovych’s coterie and spoken out for a united Ukraine and those who want to take the region under Moscow’s rule. Zurab Alasania, the director general of the state-run National Television Company, charged: “The Russian Federation is identifying and liquidating key centres of resistance”. However, Sergey Borodkin, a separatist leader in Donbass who had been working with sympathisers in Kharkiv, dismissed the claim: “He was close to Yanukovych, he was against the Maidan, the fascists there hated him. We know that members of Right Sector [an ultra nationalist group] visited Kharkiv three weeks ago to plan attacks.”
Pro-Russian officials said Mr Kernes had made a public statement that he was being subjected to “political persecution”, adding that Arsen Avakov, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, could be linked to threats against Mr Kernes and the attack on him.
There is no evidence that Mr Avakov has any link to Monday’s shooting. The two men have, however, clashed in the past with Mr Avakov accusing Mr Kernes, to whom he lost the mayoral race in 2010, of organising gangs to attack Maidan protestors in Kiev.
Pro-Russian officials said Mr Kernes had made a public statement that he was being subjected to “political persecution”, adding that Arsen Avakov, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, could be linked to threats against Mr Kernes and the attack on him.
There is no evidence that Mr Avakov has any link to Monday’s shooting. The two men have, however, clashed in the past with Mr Avakov accusing Mr Kernes, to whom he lost the mayoral race in 2010, of organising gangs to attack Maidan protestors in Kiev.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-mayor-of-second-city-gennady-kernes-fights-for-his-life-after-assassination-attempt-blamed-on-kremlin-9299210.html