'Murdered' Journalist Babchenko Fears New Assassination Attempts in Next Months

12:17 GMT, 31 May 2018

KIEV (Sputnik) - Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, whose murder was staged by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kiev earlier in the week, said on Thursday that he feared new assassination attempts against him in a couple of months.

Sputnik

"It will anyway take several months to elaborate new schemes, find a new [assassination] perpetrator, find arms, transfer the money and [settle] other technical issues. It means that there are a couple of months before giving in to paranoia — whether I am being hunted or not," Babchenko wrote in a post on his Facebook page.

Ukraine's Security Service: Murder Plot on Russian Journalist Foiled, He's Alive

30 May 2018, 12:31 GMT

On Tuesday, media reported that Babchenko, who moved to Ukraine in 2017, was allegedly shot dead in the stairwell of his apartment building, which was later confirmed by the Ukrainian authorities. However, the next day, he showed up at a press conference of SBU chief Vasyl Hrytsak, who said that reports suggesting Babchenko was murdered were part of an operation to thwart an assassination attempt against the journalist.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the fact that Babchenko was alive "the best news," adding that the SBU operation, obviously, was used for propaganda effect. Reporters Without Borders Secretary-General Christophe Deloire, in turn, condemned the operation of the Ukrainian authorities, arguing that it was used as means of information warfare.