Babchenko’s gift to Kremlin propaganda

Novaya Gazeta

Arkady Babchenko may be the Kremlin’s most outspoken foe, said Pavel Kanygin, but with his faked assassination he has handed them a weapon that can slay Russian journalism. The Russian journalist, who had fled to Ukraine after receiving Kremlin-linked death threats, collaborated with the Ukrainian Secret Service to stage his own “murder” at his Kiev apartment last week. Then not 24 hours after he was supposedly identified at the morgue, Babchenko emerged alive at a press conference to tell us it was a sting to expose a Russian plot. The friends who had wept and mourned, the reporters who’d written anguished obituaries,

the international politicians who’d denounced Russia—all were at first relieved and happy, then outraged at the deception. The Kremlin, of course, which had angrily denied any involvement just as it denies all the murders and crimes legitimately attributed to it, “is rejoicing.” It can now blame any crime on “fake news.” Celebrating with it are “conspiracy theorists across the world, who now have a brilliant excuse to strengthen their distrust of the media.” Reporters in Kiev, of course, did try their hardest to confirm the killing and were still following leads when the hoax was revealed. Babchenko did not die on May 30—“journalism did.”