Russian-Backed Leader in Ukraine Unconscious After Attack

Pavel Gubarev, one of the leaders of eastern Ukraine's rebel insurgency, is unconscious in hospital after his car was shot in an ambush on Sunday, it has emerged. 

Rumors of political infighting and rivalries are rife in the lawless rebel-held territory as self-styled politicians with guns jostle for power in the build-up to an election scheduled for early November.

Posting on her Facebook page, Gubarev's wife Ekaterina said that her husband was on the road from Rostov-on-Don in Russia to Donetsk, the heart of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, when another vehicle cut up his car and opened fire, causing the driver to crash into a concrete pillar. Ekaterina said her husband had not been shot and is expected to regain consciousness at "any moment."