Donbas: Killed pro-Russian ‘colonel’ turns out to be criminal figure from Belarus
Russian media have recently reported the killing of Yevgeny Kononov, a ‘Lieutenant Colonel’ of the unrecognised Donetsk republic. It turns ots that Kononov was a resident of the Belarusian city of Mahiliou. He left for the east of Ukraine in May, 2014.
Separatist-controlled media outlets highly praise the merits of the citizen of Belarus. According to them. he was a deputy commander of some 100th infantry brigade.
“Kot (Kononov’s nom-de-guerre) was a real military man who served at hot zones in North Caucasus. And when the existence of Russian Donbass was jeopardized, he came out for its defense without any hesitation,” separatist Alexander ‘Varyag’ Matsyushyn told journalists.
Indeed, Kononov even participated in the military parade arranged by separatists in Donetsk:
Kononov was fond of being photographed when standing near an expensive car and having a gun. He postaed a lot of pictures on Russian social network ‘Odnoklassniki’ under nickname 111111111:
For the last time he visited his page on January, 10. There were many residents of Mahiliou among his online friends.
Kononov was brought up by his mother, who was a sales director at a reclamation plant in the 1990s.
After serving in landing troops he returned home and married, but although two girls were born to the couple, the family life did not last long.
According to unconfirmed reports, Kononov was tried for robbery in Mahiliou.
After doing his time, Kononov went to Moscow to earn money. There he committed theft and was devrived of liberty as well, but soon he popped up in Donetsk as a defnder of the ‘Russian World’.
There he met a woman and started a new family. In August, a boy was born to them. Apparently, he was not going to return to Mahiliou.
Kononov was allegedly killed by a sniper, but he might well have been murdered in a separatist shootout.
Evgeny Kononov is be buried somewhere near Donetsk.
