Kremlin calls staged killing of journalist Babchenko 'anti-Russian provocation'
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the staged killing of Arkady Babchenko in a special SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) operation and the accusations made against Russia for organizing it are a “Russophobic lie”.
“Immediately after the rumors of the murder of A.A. Babchenko began, corresponding statements were made by the Ukrainian Prime Minister and other officials, directly accusing Russia of involvement in this. Now the Ukrainian authorities have completely taken a course to promote the Russophobic lie: according to SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak, Ukrainian law enforcement officers have arrested the presumed murder perpetrator, who, as he emphasized, was supposedly recruited by the Russian intelligence agency,” the Russian ministry said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry considers it natural that the Ukrainian security service will continue to “develop this provocation”.
“The Ukrainian authorities are apparently unable to find another way to demonstrate their effectiveness, other than to demonstrate a staged killing instead of investigating real crimes: the murder of O. A. Buzina, P.G. Sheremet and other journalists, as well as the residents of Odessa who were burned alive,” the Russian MFA remarked.
On the evening of May 29, police reported that the Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko had been murdered.
Later, on May 30, the SBU announced that Babchenko was alive, and that it had been a special SBU operation.
According to the investigation, the Russian intelligence agency ordered the murder of former Anti-Terrorist Operation (Ukraine’s Military Operation in Donbas) participant Arkady Babchenko through an intermediary in Ukraine.
Later the SBU published two videos with the arrest of the person who ordered the killing and a fragment of the dialog between the client and the perpetrator.