Valeriy Dmitrievich Bolotov (13 February 1970 – 27 January 2017) was the President of the Luhansk People's Republic from 17 May to 14 August 2014, preceding Igor Plotnitsky.
Biography[]
Valeriy Bolotov was born in Kadievka in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union, fighting in the 103rd Guards Airborne Division of the USSR during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Valeriy Bolotov was proclaimed the People's Governor of Luhansk on 21 April 2014 during the pro-Russian unrest in the Ukraine. Luhansk was declared an independent republic by supporters of Russia, who were opposed to the new government of Oleksandr Turchynov. Bolotov was made the leader of the insurgency, and on 11 May 2014 voted in favor of secession from Ukraine in a controversial poll. However, on 13 May 2014 Bolotov was wounded when assailants fired on his car in the Luhansk region of Ukraine in a failed assassination attempt. He was treated in Russia and was captured on his way home by the Ukrainian Army, but separatists freed him from his Ukrainian army captors. On 14 August 2014 he resigned from his post, and he was succeeded by Igor Plotnitsky. On 27 January 2017, he was found dead at his home in Moscow, supposedly from acute heart failure, but allegedly from poisoned coffee given to him by former associates.