Russians knock off another Kremlin critic

[gabosaurus]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/29/russian-journalist-arkady-babchenko-shot-dead-in-kiev


Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko has been shot and killed in Kiev. Police said he apparently was targeted because of his work. Babchenko’s wife found him bleeding at the apartment on Tuesday and called an ambulance, but he died on the way to a hospital, a police spokesman said.

“Arkady Babchenko was killed by three gunshots to the back, in the stairwell of his building as he came home from the store,” a colleague, journalist Osman Pashayev, wrote on Facebook.

Kiev police chief Andriy Krischchenko said Babchenko’s death could be linked to his “professional activities”.

Harlem Désir, the media freedom representative at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said he was “horrified” by Babchenko’s death. “I call on Ukraine authorities to conduct immediate & full investigation,” he tweeted.

Ukrainian and Russian officials immediately traded finger-pointing over his death. Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker who serves as an adviser to the interior minister, said on Facebook that investigators would be looking at “Russian spy agencies’ efforts to get rid of those who are trying to tell the truth about what is going on in Russia and Ukraine”.

[Gunny]

The NKVD strikes again. Someone REALLY ought to tell Putin it's not 1956 anymore :rolleyes:

[Black Diamond]

The NKVD strikes again. Someone REALLY ought to tell Putin it's not 1956 anymore :rolleyes:
Will he start banging his shoe?

[Gunny]

Will he start banging his shoe?Probably pulling off the heel and dialing the Kremlin :)

[Gunny]

Arkady Babchenko: Ukraine staged fake murder of journalist
Ukraine staged the murder of a Russian dissident journalist in Kiev on Tuesday in what it said was a sting operation to foil a Russian assassination plot.
Arkady Babchenko sent shock waves around the world when he arrived at a news conference on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he was reported dead.
The head of Ukraine's security services, Vasyl Hrytsak, said the elaborate sting was set up to catch hitmen paid by Russian forces.
Police said they had made one arrest.
Babchenko's wife said on Tuesday that she had found her husband at the entrance to their apartment block with bullet wounds in his back, and he was reported to have died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
That story was widely reported by media around the world, until Wednesday's sudden and extraordinary development.
There were gasps and applause at the press conference in Kiev as Babchenko entered the room. He thanked the Ukrainian security services for saving (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611#) his life and said he had no choice but to take part in the sting.
"I did my job. I'm still alive," he said. "I have buried many friends and colleagues many times and I know the sickening feeling," he added. "I am sorry you had to experience it. But there was no other way."
Hours after the news broke, Babchenko tweeted to say he would "die at 96" after "dancing on Putin's grave", referring to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
Babchenko fled Russia in 2017 after writing a Facebook post (in Russian) about a crashed Tu-154 transport plane (https://www.facebook.com/babchenkoa/posts/946206472146253), which went into the Black Sea while carrying a Red Army choir to Syria.
He claimed this Facebook post, in which he described Russia as an "aggressor", led to death threats and abuse from the Russian state.
What do we know about the operation?Babchenko said he was informed a month ago about an alleged Russian plot to kill him. He said he agreed to cooperate with a counter-operation and was in constant contact with Ukrainian security services over the course of the past month.
He added that he thought security services had been planning the operation for up to two months.
Mr Hrytsak said the operation began after Ukrainian security services were informed about a Russian plot to kill the journalist.
He alleged that Russian security forces had recruited a Ukrainian citizen to find hitmen within Ukraine. He said the citizen approached several acquaintances, including war veterans, offering $30,000 (£22,600) for the contract killing, one of whom revealed the plot to the security services.

The security services then informed Babchenko, apparently determining that the only way to reveal the plotters was to stage a fake hit.
Babchenko said that his wife Olechka and his children were aware of the plan, but he publicly apologised to her at the press conference. "Olechka, I am terribly sorry," he said, "but there were no other options".
Mr Hrytsak said the man detained by police was the Ukrainian who attempted to find a hitman (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611#).
The reactionRussia's foreign ministry condemned the staged assassination, calling it "obviously yet another anti-Russian provocation".
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement that the operation was "a masquerade" done for "propagandistic effect". She added that Russia was happy that Babchenko was alive, saying: "I wish it were always like that."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the country would offer protection to Babchenko. "It is unlikely that Moscow will calm down. I've given an order to provide Arkady and his family with protection," he said on Twitter.
The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty network posted video footage of Babchenko's colleagues reacting to news that he was alive.

(https://twitter.com/radiosvoboda/status/1001845376549257217)


But many expressed reservations over the tactics used by the Ukrainian security services. Campaign group Reporters Without Borders condemned the operation as a "pathetic stunt".
"It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive," the head of the organisation, Christophe Deloire, told AFP.
The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded that the authorities explain "what necessitated the extreme measure", describing it in a tweet as an "unprecedented situation" (https://twitter.com/pressfreedom/status/1001862007740649472).
Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a former colleague of Babchenko, said the sting had "crossed a line big time".
"Babchenko is a journalist not a policeman, for Christ sake, and part of our job is trust, whatever Trump & Putin say about fake news," he wrote on Twitter. "I'm glad he is alive, but he undermined even further the credibility of journalists and the media," he added.
Simon Ostrovsky, a journalist and friend of Babchenko, told the BBC he felt "anger and relief in equal measure".
“From being incredibly gloomy and sad yesterday... to frankly anger today, we’ve all been hoodwinked and made to believe our friend died."


A glaring example of 'fake news'Frank Gardner, BBC Security Correspondent
There can be few more glaring examples of 'fake news' than the deliberate misreporting by a sovereign government of a prominent journalist's death.
Relations between Russia and Ukraine are at an all-time low, following Moscow's annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, and Russia has been accused of several recent deaths of Kremlin critics in Ukraine.
But this staged non-death will inevitably muddy the waters. Russia already denies any involvement in the attempted assassination of its former spy Sergei Skripal in the UK city of Salisbury in March, calling it fake news.
It will now likely seize on this deception in Kiev to strengthen its claim in that case, and in others.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/C50B/production/_101534405_presentational_grey_line464-nc.pngDeaths in KievKiev has in recent years seen a number of deadly attacks on high-profile figures, including journalists and politicians. Most of them were vocal critics of the Kremlin.
The leading Belarusian journalist and Kremlin critic, Pavel Sheremet, was killed by a car bomb in Kiev in July 2016.
Another car bomb killed Ukrainian military intelligence officer Col Maxim Shapoval in June 2017 in what the Ukrainian authorities called a terrorist act.
In March of the same year, former Russian MP Denis Voronenkov was shot dead outside a hotel in (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611#) Kiev.


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611

Note the bolded portion and WHO is most offended. THE MEDIA is crying its collective ass off because someone didn't tell it the truth. Wait for some sympathy from ME. Please hold your breath while I muster some up. True story :)

Damned pot calling the kettle black.:rolleyes:

[Drummond]

Just for the record - I applaud what the Ukrainians have done. They know their enemy, and know it well .. better than most of us. They know just how to deal with them.

All power to them, whether it be for this operation, or others they must conduct in the future in the furtherance of justice.

Perhaps Polite Russian might have a comment for us ?