Arkady Babchenko was reported to be assassinated on Tuesday in Kiev, but he showed up alive at a news conference on Wednesday. Why does Ukraine needs such a trick, nobody understood.
Dead Russian journalist and a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin ‘alive’ after murder plot foiled by the Ukrainian police in Kiev. According to Vasyl Hrytsak, the chief of Ukraine’s security service, the elaborate sting was set up to catch hitmen paid by Russian forces. Mr Hrytsak said the operation began after Ukrainian security services were informed about a plot to kill Babchenko who said he was informed a month ago about an alleged Russian plot to kill him.
The official reports on Tuesday indicated Mr Babchenko was shot in the back in his apartment in Kiev, dying in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. The cruellest thing, his wife was said to have found him and called the ambulance. It was not clear if Babchenko’s wife Olga was aware that his death had been faked but Arkady asked her to forgive him for such a heroic behaviour because “but there were no other options”.
Babchenko’s version of his assassination by Russian hitman
The 41-year-old Arkady Babchenko said the citizen approached several acquaintances, including war veterans, offering $30,000 for the contract killing, one of whom revealed the plot to the security services. They then informed Babchenko, apparently determining that the only way to reveal the plotters was to stage a fake hit.
President Poroshenko said Ukraine would offer protection to journalist Babchenko.
“It is unlikely that Moscow will calm down. I’ve given an order to provide Arkady and his family with protection,”
he said on Twitter while the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that the staged murder was “a masquerade” done for “propagandistic effect”.
Babchenko is extremely critical of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and fled Russia in February of last year because of threats to him and his family.
