Soviet era Little is known about Bolotov's life prior to 2014; in a video of him voting in a local referendum, he presents a Ukrainian passport which indicates that he was born in
Taganrog,
Rostov Oblast on 13 February 1970. In 1974, he moved to
Kadiivka, in the
Luhansk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. Bolotov claimed to be a senior sergeant of the
Soviet Airborne Troops in
Vitebsk (presumably the
103rd Guards Airborne Division), and between 1989 and 1990 participated in a number of conflicts, including those in
Tbilisi, Yerevan and
Karabakh. He later became the head of the airborne veterans group, while no one of the Luhansk Oblast group cell can confirm it. In 2014, Bolotov became a leader of an armed group during the
2014 pro-Russian conflict in Ukraine. On May 13, 2014, Bolotov survived an assassination attempt as assailants fired automatic weapons towards his car, wounding the militant leader. Bolotov was then briefly captured by the
Ukrainian army on May 17 after he attempted to re-enter
Luhansk following his having received treatment for his injury at a hospital in Russia. However, armed supporters of the Luhansk People's Republic attacked the Ukrainian army checkpoint where Bolotov was being held shortly afterwards and successfully freed the "People's Governor".
Death and legacy Bolotov was found dead on 27 January 2017 in his own home in
Moscow,
Russia. Investigators tried to determine the cause of his death as the preliminary results of clinical tests showed an
acute heart failure as the cause of his death. His wife later claimed that he may have been poisoned. Though more detailed report of the local police office claimed that there were no obvious signs of acute heart failure and only small
atherosclerotic plaques were identified instead, it was known that before death he was complaining to his wife about his health deterioration, which happened right after drinking a cup of coffee at the business meeting in company with two men he allegedly knew, it became later known that Bolotov met with ex-speaker of the
Alexey Karyakin and
Valery Alexandrovich as he had said and added also that the meeting was appointed by request of Bolotov himself. Bolotov's corpse was later tested for the presence of the poisoning drugs in his body at the request of his wife, but as of 2018, the results are unknown. His widow has two children. == See also ==