DONETSK, September 2. /TASS/. About 30 thousand people attended the funeral of the Prime Minister of the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic [DPR], Alexander Zakharchenko, who died on Friday in a terrorist explosion in Donetsk.

The funeral ceremony is taking place in the Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after Solovyanenko. Local ministers, MPs, military officers, entrepreneurs, seniors, students and schoolchildren have attended the ceremony.

A delegation from the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic was also in attendance, headed by its acting head Leonid Pasechnik.

Alexander Zakharchenko, who had been Prime Minister of the DPR since 2014, died in an explosion in downtown Donetsk on Friday. He was 42 years old. The blast left two people dead and nine injured, including DPR minister of taxes and duties, Alexander Timofeyev, and the head of a local youth organization, Nataliya Volkova. According to DPR Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Trapeznikov, who was appointed acting head of the republic, law enforcement agencies have already detained several suspects in the blast, who confirmed the Kiev government’s involvement. Earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) denied any role in the blast.