Russian journalist and critic of Putin murdered in Kiev

A PROMINENT Russian journalist known for his sharp criticism of Vladimir Putin has been murdered.

Arkady Babchenko, 41, was found by his wife in a pool of blood at their Kiev apartment on Monday night. He had been shot in the back and died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

He became one of Russia’s most famous war correspondents after writing a memoir of his service as a conscript in the Chechen wars, but went into exile in 2017, saying he had received multiple threats to him and his family.

Mr Babchenko had emerged as a bitter online critic of the Putin government, in regular blogs attacking the Kremlin on his Facebook page.

He was especially critical of the Kremlin’s military entanglements in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria and faced further threats over comments he made after dozens of members of a Russian army choir died in an air crash en route to Syria in 2016.

The murder comes two years after Pavel Sheremet, a prominent liberal Belarusian journalist, was killed in a car bombing in Kiev.