Russian journalist back from the ‘dead’
Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist who had reportedly been shot dead in Kiev on Tuesday, appeared at a press conference held by the head of Ukraine’s Security Service to reveal that his murder had been faked in order to thwart a plot on his life. Apologising to his wife, Mr Babchenko said the set-up had led to the arrest of one suspect
BY YESTERDAY 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 (SBU), called a press conference and announced the whole thing had been a set-up. For a moment, there was an uncomprehending silence. Then a door opened and in shuffled a familiar shaven-headed man – Mr 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.
“Special apologies to my wife. Olechka, I am sorry, but there were no options here. The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result, one person has been captured, he is being held.”
Mr 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. Ukraine’s prosecutor general said the alleged plot involved a Ukrainian citizen who had been recruited by Russian handlers to carry out the hit. The SBU last night released video footage of what it said was a payment being made to the hitman. Kiev hailed the operation a victory but Moscow condemned it as a stunt.
Ukrainian police said the veteran war correspondent had been killed by a gunman lurking in the stairwell outside his Kiev flat late on Tuesday.
Police said his wife found his body on the threshold of the flat with several gunshot wounds in his back. He was reported to have died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
All of this seemed entirely plausible to those who knew him, and the operation was accompanied by an attempt to convince journalists the murder was real, with an apparently staged photograph of Mr Babchenko lying in a pool of blood sent to reporters in Kiev and circulated on social media. Mr Babchenko had been an implacable public critic of the Kremlin and the death appeared to fit with a pattern of murders in Kiev. The unsolved deaths included that of Pavel Sheremet, a prominent Belarusian born liberal journalist who was blown up in his car in 2016 and Kremlin critics Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov, who were murdered in Moscow in 2006 and 2015.
Yesterday, journalists and media freedom groups said it undermined faith in reporting and played into the hands of governments who dismiss unwelcome coverage as fake news.
“It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive,” said Christophe Deloire, the head of Reporters Without Borders.
“All it takes is one case like this to cast doubt on all the other political assassinations.” Moscow, which in the morning had condemned Mr Babchenko’s murder and denied its involvement, in the evening welcomed the news he was alive and well, but swiftly condemned the set-up 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.”
Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president, congratulated the security services for their “brilliant operation”.
Anton Geraschenko, an aide to the Ukrainian interior ministry, justified the pain caused to Mr Babchenko’s family and friends by the staged death, by invoking Sherlock Holmes.
“Wasn’t that also painful for his relatives and Dr Watson?” he wrote on Facebook.