BACK FROM THE DEAD
‘THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY’: JOURNALIST AND AUTHORITIES STAGE DEATH TO UNMASK ASSASSINS
By Wednesday afternoon, most of Arkady Babchenko’s friends and colleagues had gone through the familiar cycle of grief and confusion that follows the killing of a Russian dissident journalist.
Obituaries had been written, travel arrangements were made for the funeral and Western politicians including Boris Johnson had announced they were “appalled.”
Ukraine blamed Russia, Russia blamed Ukraine and both launched rival investigations to prove it.
But then came a twist that no one could predict: Vasily Gritsak, the head of Ukraine’s Security Service, called a press conference and announced the whole thing had been a setup. For a moment, there was an uncomprehending silence. Then a door opened and in shuffled a familiar shaven-headed man — Babchenko.
Looking somewhat sheepish, he said: “I have buried many friends and colleagues and I know the sickening feeling. I am sorry you had to experience it. But there was no other way.”
Even Babchenko’s wife was unaware of the deception, and the 41-year-old Kremlin critic who fled to Ukraine 15 months ago apologized to her “for the hell she had to go through in the past two days. There was no choice there, either.”
Reporters gasped and exclaimed their surprise, then broke into applause.
Gritsak said the faked death had allowed Ukrainian agents to thwart a genuine murder plot. Staging it, he implied, was necessary to gain evidence of communication between the hitman and his handlers.
And the interior ministry went so far as to justify the stunt by saying Sherlock Holmes had used the same tactic.
Neither Babchenko nor Gritsak gave details of the sting operation or how they made his wife believe he was dead.
Kyiv Police Chief Andriy Krishchenko had announced Babchenko’s death Tuesday, saying the journalist’s wife found him bleeding at their apartment building in Kyiv but that he died en route to the hospital. Lawmaker Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister, said the assailant had waited on a staircase in the building and shot Babchenko in the back as he was going to buy bread.
Just hours before the shooting was reported, Babchenko wrote on Facebook that he considered the day a “second birthday” because it was the fourth anniversary of his missing a flight on a Ukrainian military helicopter that later was shot down in the conflict between Ukraine and Moscowbacked separatists in the eastern part of the country.
At the start of Wednesday’s news conference, Gritsak announced the journalist’s murder had been solved and called the day Babchenko’s “third birthday.”
Babchenko said he was not allowed to go into the details of his false death. He said Ukraine’s law enforcement had been aware of a contract on his head for two months. He said he was approached by the Ukrainian Security Service a month ago.
“The important thing is my life has been saved and other, bigger terrorist attacks have been thwarted,” he said.
Gritsak said investigators had identified a Ukrainian citizen who allegedly was paid $40,000 to organize the hit. The unidentified Ukrainian man in turn allegedly hired an acquaintance to be the gunman, he added.
The suspected organizer of the alleged hit plot was detained Wednesday, Gritsak said, suggesting the bogus killing was aimed at flushing him out, and he showed a video of the arrest.
Killing Babchenko was part of a larger alleged plot by Russian security services, Gritsak said.
The Ukrainian man also was supposed to procure large quantities of weapons and explosives, including 300 AK-47 rifles and “hundreds of kilos of explosives,” to perpetrate acts of terror in Ukraine, he said.
Russia, which in the morning had condemned Babchenko’s murder and denied its involvement, in the evening welcomed his recovery and swiftly condemned it as “propaganda.”
“The fact that Mr. Babchenko is alive is the best news,” said Maria Zakharova, spokesman for the foreign ministry. “The fact that the whole story was created for propaganda effect is obvious.”