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Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine said Wednesday Russia's "totalitarian machine" was behind the murder of anti-Kremlin reporter Arkady Babchenko, prompting furious denials from Moscow. The prominent Russian war correspondent and former soldier was shot dead on Tuesday evening in an apparent contract-style killing in the stairwell of his building in Kiev. He had moved to the Ukrainian capital last year following a campaign of harassment in Moscow. The 41-year-old was the latest in a number of Kremlin critics to have been killed in Kiev in the past two years. Ukrainian police have opened a murder probe, saying they suspect the crime was linked to work. "I am convinced that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and principled stance," Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said Tuesday. "A true friend of Ukraine who was telling the world the truth about Russian aggression. His murderers should be punished." An aide to the Ukrainian interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, also pointed the finger at Moscow, writing on Facebook: "The Putin regime targets those it cannot break or intimidate." Many politicians and observers including Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin suggested Russia wanted to sow chaos in the country -- already wracked by a four-year conflict with pro-Russian rebels in the east -- ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, widely reported to have been assassinated in Kiev on Tuesday, is alive and well. Mr Babchenko appeared at a press conference on Ukrainian television on Wednesday. Speaking at the press conference, the head of Ukraine's security services, Vasyl Hrytsak, confirmed the journalist was alive. This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
Mr Babchenko was supposedly found by his wife bleeding at the entrance to his block of flats, shot several times in the back, and died in an ambulance. The journalist apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said.
Weirdest press conference of my life. Babchenko is alive. It was part of a sting to uncover an attempt on his life SBU says organized by Ukrainian citizen funded with $40k from Russia
originally posted by: Briles1207
Was just starting a thread on this. Be interesting to see how Russia side step this one.
His wife didn't even know, thats some serious undercover haha!!
Mr Babchenko was supposedly found by his wife bleeding at the entrance to his block of flats, shot several times in the back, and died in an ambulance. The journalist apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said.
As stated at a press conference after the special operation, Babchenko'sfamily was not informed of the plan. The journalist apologized in a live broadcast to his wife: "Special apologies to my wife, Olechka, there was no other option." Earlier it was reported in a police statement that his wife has found Arkady wounded and called the police and an ambulance. This is a contradiction that needs to be clarified. How did Ukraine's security services manage to reach an agreement with the perpetrator of the crime? The man who allegedly killed a journalist collaborated with Ukraine's security services. According to Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, after Ukraine's security services found out about the assassination plans, they managed to achieve cooperation with the perpetrator. But so far there have been no more additional details. That's not enough information to get the full picture of what really happened.
Before the revelations, the Kremlin had also taken the Ukrainian allegations seriously, with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denouncing them as part of an effort to stir up anti-Russian sentiments, directed in part by what he called Ukraine's "Western handlers." After the truth was revealed, the foreign ministry released a statement saying it was glad he was alive and calling the Ukrainian operation an "anti-Russian provocation."
A dissident Russian journalist has blasted "the keepers of morality" who criticized his faked assassination by Ukrainian authorities, and vowed to live long enough to dance on President Vladimir Putin's grave. In a Facebook post late on May 30, Arkady Babchenko promised to "die at the age of 96, having danced on Putin's grave" as well as taking a selfie standing on a tank" on Tverskoi [Bulvar in downtown Moscow]." He later wrote a post railing against "the keepers of morality, who are dissatisfied with the fact that I somehow wrongly, in their opinion, did not die.”