The “Lugansk People’s Republic” (LNR) “Minister of Agriculture and Food Products,” Sergey Litvin, is reported to have died. Russian propagandist Evgeny Krutikov writes: “Today, the heart of Sergey Litvin has unexpectedly stopped beating.“ Musician Igor Sivak, using similar language, writes:

Today, the heart of my friend… Sergey Litvin, stopped beating. He was one of those people, who in his own hands, took the young Republic out of the flames, and did everything possible and impossible, to make agriculture function, and so that every resident of the LNR always has bread and grain on their table, grown in the Republic.

Litvin was appointed to his post on August 26th, 2014, under Gennady Tsypalkov, a Russian citizen, who held the title of “Prime Minister” of the LNR from August 2014 to December 2015. Tsypalkov reportedly “committed suicide” while detained by the LNR on suspicion of plotting a coup against current LNR “Prime Minister” Igor Plotnitsky – this was one of many suspicious deaths of prominent LNR members. Former LNR figurehead Valery Bolotov, also a Russian citizen, suspects that the LNR may have tortured Tsypalkov to death. Given the pattern of unexplained or suspicious deaths of figures associated with the LNR, it is reasonable to inquire about the precise circumstances of Litvin’s passing.

According to pro-LNR propaganda website, Lugansk Information Center, Litvin was born in July 1973, in Lysychansk, of the Lugansk oblast of Ukraine. His family subsequently moved to the city of Lugansk, where Litvin attended school, polytechnical college, and the Volodymyr Dahl National University. He studied [General] Management and Human Resource Management in the latter, and had a career in agribusiness.

Litvin was allegedly involved in “protest movements” in Sloviansk and Krasniy Lyman starting in March 2014. From April 2014 onwards, he allegedly participated in hostilities against the Ukrainian state. He may have been a participant in the organization of the May 11, 2014 “referendum” in which Russia and the LNR claimed that “96%” of participants voted for independence from Ukraine with an “81%” turnout. A few days prior to the “referendum,” the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) released an audio recording of a phone call, in which Alexander Barkashov, leader of the neo-Nazi paramilitary group Russian National Unity, instructs representatives of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR) to proceed with the referendum, rather than cancelling or delaying it, and to falsify the “referendum” results to show 99% support for independence, later amending that to a more believable 89% – indeed, in the DNR/Russia-controlled area of the Donetsk oblast, the reported result of the fraudulent, Russia-sponsored referendum would be 89% for independence. The Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior reported that only 24% of Lugansk’s eligible voters, and 32% of Donetsk’s eligible participants turned out to vote.

Update: Jack Losh provides the following details on Litvin:

Hearsay: a mutual friend in LNR tells me Litvin was a heavy weed smoker and gained a reputation as a trusted dealer in the regime https://t.co/DD0XQ2Elcs — Jack Losh (@jacklosh) December 27, 2016

Ex colleague describes him as an "optimist" with "the charm of a local criminal". Plus the obligatory strong links to smuggling underworld — Jack Losh (@jacklosh) December 27, 2016