Tag Archives: Babchenko

Nowhere to hide from Russia, says Ukrainian journalist named on hit-list

Ukrainian journalist Matvey Ganapolsky speaks during an interview with Reuters in Kiev, Ukraine June 4, 2018. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

By Olena Vasina and Sergei Karazy

KIEV (Reuters) – Ukrainian journalist Matvei Ganapolsky sees no point in hiding abroad from Russians who might be trying to kill him, because if they want to find him, geography won’t stop them.

Ganapolsky is on a list of 47 people who Ukraine says Russia has targeted for assassination, a list which also includes Yevgeny Kiselyov, a veteran anchorman who became one of Russia’s best known television journalists in the 1990s.

Ukrainian authorities say they obtained the list after faking the murder of exiled Russian dissident Arkady Babchenko, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, in a ruse staged to flush out a genuine plot against him.

Ganapolsky, 64, was offered protection by the Ukrainian state after being told, after Babchenko’s sudden reappearance, that he too was a Russian target.

Fleeing abroad won’t help, he says, as the poisoning of the Russian former spy Sergei Skripal in Britain in March showed.

“The Skripals were poisoned in Great Britain,” Ganapolsky told Reuters in an interview.

“To send a man to kill somebody is a question of the price of a plane ticket. And, in low season, tickets are on sale with a discount. And moreover you have low-cost airlines nowadays. That’s why geography doesn’t matter in this case.”

Born in western Ukraine, Ganapolsky moved to Moscow in 1973 and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, made his name as a journalist with outspoken criticism of corruption in Russian law enforcement and restrictions on free speech.

He eventually came back to Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and was given Ukrainian citizenship by President Petro Poroshenko.

He and Kiselyov came forward on Friday to say they had been contacted by the Ukrainian authorities after Babchenko’s faked murder.

Kiselyov, one of Russia’s most prominent liberal journalists of the post-Soviet era who co-founded Russia’s NTV, came to Ukraine in 2008 saying he had been squeezed out of the mainstream media.

“I despise Putin. I am not afraid of him,” Kiselyov told Reuters in an interview. “I am not saying that I do not sometimes feel fear for my life, or security of my family, my friends and relatives, but the feeling that I have is a feeling of … contempt.”

Kiselyov supports Ukraine in its standoff with Russia over Crimea and the outbreak of a Russian-backed separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

“If you are a political journalist, a commentator, and you take sides in this war, and I am taking Ukrainian side, well it involves certain risks,” he said.

Ukraine has received both praise and criticism for the stunt to fake Babchenko’s death. Some said the incident, which involved the phoney distribution of lurid details about his shooting, was a stunt in poor taste which had sparked a false outpouring of grief and finger-pointing at Russia.

For Ganapolsky, it is better to believe the threat is real than not believe it. “… Babchenko believed in it and maybe that was what saved his life,” he said.

(Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Russian journalist Babchenko turns up alive after reported murder

Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko (C), who was reported murdered in the Ukrainian capital on May 29, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko (R) and head of the state security service (SBU) Vasily Gritsak attend a news briefing in Kiev, Ukraine May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

By Matthias Williams and Andrew Osborn

KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – A dissident Russian journalist who was reported murdered in Kiev dramatically reappeared alive on Wednesday in the middle of a briefing about his own killing by the Ukrainian state security service.

Ukrainian authorities had said on Tuesday that Babchenko, a 41-year-old critic of President Vladimir Putin and of Russian policy in Ukraine and Syria, had been shot dead at his flat and that his wife had found him in a pool of blood.

His reported murder had triggered a war of words between Ukraine and Russia and sent shivers through the journalistic communities in both countries.

But on Wednesday, an emotional Babchenko appeared before reporters saying he had been part of a special Ukrainian operation to thwart a Russian attempt on his life and said he was fine.

“I would like to apologise for what you have all had to go through,” Babchenko, who looked on the verge of tears at times, told reporters.

“I’m sorry, but there was no other way of doing it. Separately, I want to apologise to my wife for the Hell that she has been through.”

He went on to thank the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, for saving his life and said the most important thing was that what he called other big acts of terror had been thwarted. He did not specify what those planned acts were.

The SBU said it had received information about the plot and had managed to prevent it.

Babchenko, a Putin critic, lived in the Ukrainian capital after receiving threats at home for saying he did not mourn the victims of a Russian military plane crash.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in a social media posting late on Tuesday he was convinced what he called “the Russian totalitarian machine” had not forgiven Babchenko for what Groysman called his honesty.

The Kremlin described such allegations as part of an anti-Russian smear campaign.

“This is the height of cynicism against the backdrop of such a brutal murder. It is anti-Russian bluster instead of talking about the need to conduct a thorough, objective investigation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters before it was revealed that Babchenko was alive and well.

Babchenko sparked a backlash in Russia for his comments in a 2016 Facebook post on a Russian military plane crash. He said his comments had resulted in thousands of threats, his home address being published online and calls for him to be deported.

The plane, carrying 92 people, including dozens of Red Army Choir singers, dancers and orchestra members, crashed into the Black Sea on its way to Syria in December 2016, killing everyone on board.

(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth and Maria Kiselyova in Moscow, Olena Vasina and Natalia Zinets in Kiev; Editing by Christian Lowe)