Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Back from the dead?

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 being reported dead.

Ukrainian security chief Vasyl Hrytsak said a sting had been set up to catch hitmen paid by Russian forces.

Russia described events in Kiev as an "anti-Russian provocation".

Ukrainian police say they made one arrest.

Babchenko's wife said on Tuesday 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 his life and said he had had no choice but to take part in the sting.

"I did my job," he said. " I'm still alive."

"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, which went into the Black Sea while carrying a Red Army choir to Syria.

He said this Facebook post, in which he described Russia as an "aggressor", had led to death threats and abuse from the Russian state.

What do we know about the operation?

Babchenko said he had been informed a month ago about an alleged Russian plot to kill him. He said he had agreed to co-operate with a counter-operation and had been 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 had begun 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 had 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.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Babchenko covering the Maidan protests in Kiev in 2014

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 Olga and his children had been aware of the plan but he publicly apologised to her at the press conference. "I am terribly sorry," he said, "but there were no other options."

Mr Hrytsak said the man detained by police was the Ukrainian who had allegedly attempted to find a hitman.

The reaction

Russia's foreign ministry condemned the staged assassination, calling it "obviously yet another anti-Russian provocation".

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the operation as "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," he said on Twitter. "I've given an order to provide Arkady and his family with protection."

The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty network posted video footage of Babchenko's colleagues reacting to news that he was alive.

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 news agency.

The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded that the authorities explain "what necessitated the extreme measure", describing it in a tweet as an "unprecedented situation".

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."

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."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Friend of Babchenko: "We’ve all been hoodwinked"

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.

Deaths in Kiev

Kiev 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 Kiev.</s>Ukrainian opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili Tuesday urged European leaders to slap sanctions on President Petro Poroshenko, whom he accused of violating his human rights by expelling him from the country three months ago.

Saakashvili, 50, was thrown out of Ukraine in mid-February when masked men abducted him from a downtown Kiev restaurant and swiftly deported him to Poland. He is currently living in the Netherlands with his Dutch wife and two sons.

Now his lawyers say Kiev trampled on the rights of the maverick politician, but any lawsuit — for instance at the Luxembourg-based European Court for Human Rights — could take years to pursue.

Instead, Saakashvili called upon European leaders to slap sanctions on Poroshenko and his political allies to force the Ukranian president to allow him back into the country.

Ukraine is due to hold parliamentary and presidential polls next year which Saakashvili has vowed to contest.

“I will return to the Ukraine, but in the meantime I’ll keep busy to ensure that special sanctions are being put into effect against Poroshenko,” Saakashvili told reporters at his first press conference since arriving in the Netherlands in February.

His British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said his client decided to call on European leaders to impose sanctions against Poroshenko because a possible lawsuit “would still take years.”

“The challenge, I think, is now to the states of Europe… to take diplomatic action… that must be used as a lever to actually influence Ukraine and its president to do the right thing,” Robertson said.

“To allow Mr Saakashvili back, to allow him to lead his political party in the elections next year,” Robertson said.

A one-time regional governor in Ukraine, Saakashvili dramatically fell out with Poroshenko over allegations that Kiev was failing to fight endemic corruption.

The ugly dispute saw Saakashvili stripped of his Ukrainian passport, effectively rendering him stateless. He has now received a Dutch ID card which allows him to live and work in the European Union.

Kiev in turn accuses Saakashvili of trying to stage a coup sponsored by allies of former Kremlin-backed Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych — a charge he strongly denies.

Saakashvili was detained at the Kiev restaurant and flown back to Poland, after slipping into Ukraine through a blockade on the Polish-Ukrainian border in September 2017.

The former Georgian president from 2004-2013 is also wanted by Tbilisi on charges of abuse of power — which he strenuously denies. A Georgian court sentenced him to three years in prison in absentia in January.</s>Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was reported killed in Kiev, shows up at a news conference in Ukraine.</s>In a totally surreal turn of events, less than 24 hours after it was reported that prominent Russian war journalist Arkadi Babchenko had been assassinated outside of his home in Kiev, he had risen from the dead. He was reported by the Ukrainian government to have died of three gunshot wounds to the back while being transported to a hospital in the back of an ambulance. Babchenko, who is the author of a beloved memoir of his war service in Chechnya, and who had fled to Kiev from his native Russia last year, stunned the post-Soviet world when he appeared alive and well at a Kiev press conference yesterday in a black hoody. The journalist appeared to be unscathed, standing with Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the SBU, Ukraine’s main intelligence agency.

Learning several months ago of an impending assassination attempt on the high-profile journalist, the Ukrainian intelligence service created an audacious sting operation to entrap both the killer and the Russian agent who was organizing the attempted hit. The SBU chief released details of the plot, which was allegedly executed by an eastern Ukrainian separatist who was to have been paid $30,000 for the hit by Russian agents. Another $10,000 were promised to a middleman who found the assassin. The Ukrainian president thanked the SBU for having a tremendous success, and the interior minister smirked over yesterday’s accusations that the Ukrainian state was not capable of defending people living on its territory.

Babchenko gave his press conference in Ukrainian, which he seems to have learned to a passable level since having fled to Ukraine last autumn. He began with an apology to his wife, for having put her through what one can imagine was probably the worst night of her life.

In a wonderful touch, the influential Ukrainian parliamentarian and interior ministry spokesman, Anton Gerashenko, who had publicly confirmed that Babchenko had been killed yesterday, used a literary justification for the misdirection: “After all, Arthur Conan Doyle’s hero Sherlock Holmes successfully used the same method of staging his own death in effective investigations of complex and intricate crimes. No matter how painful it must have been for his family and Dr. Watson.”

An important fact largely missing from the deluge of Western commentary was the fact that the Ukrainian special services have certainly engaged in this behavior before, most notably in a case relating to the Ukrainian Odessa MP Alexi Goncharenko, who was “kidnapped” last year for his own protection. In Babchenko’s case, however, many of his fans were devastated to learn that the beloved journalist was executed in broad daylight.

The scheme has demonstrated a surprising capacity from the Ukrainian intelligence services to protect high-risk targets and carry out complex dragnet operations that many commentators and experts had doubted they could pull off. Still, the incident ignited a passionate debate on the necessity of the fake operation and of Babchenko’s faked death, with sharp divisions and arguments erupting over both social media and with foreign journalists and policy experts almost uniformly critical of the operation. On the Maidan, on the other hand, where crowds had gathered to mourn the writer, many were suddenly popping Champagne bottles.

, executive director at The American Center for a European Ukraine, told Tablet that “

On Twitter, meanwhile, the swaggering and irrepressible Babchenko wrote that “I promised to die at 96, having danced on the grave of Putin and taken a selfie.”

Vladislav Davidzon, the Chief Editor of The Odessa Review, is a Russian-American writer, translator, and critic. He was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and lives in Paris.</s>Ukraine has strongly rejected international criticism of a sting operation that saw dissident Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko help fake his own shooting in Kiev to foil an alleged multiple-murder plot devised by Moscow.

To near universal astonishment, Babchenko (41) walked into a press conference on Wednesday called by Ukraine’s SBU security agency to give details of his reported death the night before.

On Thursday, he said he had used pig’s blood to stage photos of his “corpse” and had actually been taken to a morgue, where he watched breaking news of his supposed murder.

The SBU said the sting thwarted a plan to kill Babchenko and some 30 other Russian exiles in Ukraine, but international press watchdogs berated Kiev for issuing fake news that could further undermine public faith in officials and the media.

“The aggressor does not stop trying to destabilise the situation in Ukraine from within,” Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said on Thursday, referring to a multifaceted yet undeclared war that Russia has waged against his country for four years.

“Everything that you saw yesterday was a the result of a brilliant special operation by heroes from the [SBU]. The whole world saw the true face of our enemy,” he added.

“When we caught them red-handed, people say we didn’t act correctly. But it is not Ukrainians who should be condemned, but Russia. Ukrainians are doing everything possible to stand their ground and defend themselves.”

Reporters Without Borders expressed its “deepest indignation after discovering the manipulation of the Ukrainian secret services, this new step of a war of information”.

Meanwhile Harlem Desir, the OSCE’s media freedom representative, said: “I deplore the decision to spread false information on the life of a journalist. It is the duty of the state to provide correct information to the public.”

Russia called the operation a “propaganda” exercise and deputies and state media compared it to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, which Moscow claims was staged to discredit the Kremlin.

Kiev appeared to receive some backing from Brussels, however, where Ukrainian media quoted EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic as saying Ukraine was “in a very particular situation as regards its security, considering the situation in [annexed] Crimea and the conflict in the east of the country.

“Ukraine has the right to defend its national interest and territory.”

Ukrainian prosecutors insist it was vital to give the impression that Babchenko had been killed, to ensure that the organiser of the attack continued to communicate with the person or group who ordered it, and to discover their other alleged targets in Ukraine.

Prosecutors say Russia’s security services paid a Ukrainian citizen $40,000 to hire a killer to eliminate Babchenko.

The SBU incorporated the would-be killer into the sting, however, and the organiser was arrested. His lawyer identified him as Boris Herman, executive director of a firearms producer in Kiev.

Ukrainian interior minister Arsen Avakov also rejected criticism of the operation. “Did you want Babchenko to be killed, and then you’d use it as an example and say, Look ... there’s another dead journalist in your country?” he said.

Following several high-profile and still unsolved murders in Kiev – including those of Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet and former Russian deputy Denis Voronenkov – Mr Avakov said, “If we could do such operations in all the other major cases, then we would do it every day.”

Babchenko moved to Kiev last year after receiving death threats for his criticism of Russia’s leaders and military operations in Ukraine and Syria.

On Facebook he dismissed critics of the sting in colourful terms, and said: “How good it feels not to be a target ... I’m happy.”</s>Police in the capital of Ukraine say a Russian journalist has been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment

MOSCOW (AP) — Police in the capital of Ukraine say a Russian journalist has been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment.</s>On Tuesday, the news spread quickly: Russian dissident journalist Arkady Babchenko had been shot three times just outside his apartment in Kiev, as he went out to buy bread. His wife had been in the bathroom; when she rushed out at the sound of gunshots, she found her husband bleeding to death. He died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. On Facebook, Ukraine’s prime minister blamed Russia.

No one had trouble believing this story; no one even considered questioning it. It was gruesomely familiar, similar to the many horrifying stories we’d already heard from Russia, Ukraine, and other countries where journalists are killed for their reporting. The examples that sprang first to my mind were the 2006 assassination of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot four times after she entered her Moscow apartment building, her groceries in hand; and the 2016 murder of Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian journalist killed by a car bomb in central Kiev. The masterminds behind Politkovskaya’s murder were never identified, but it was revealed that she had been under surveillance by the FSB, the Russian security service, for at least two months before her murder. The Ukrainian government still hasn’t arrested or prosecuted anyone for Sheremet’s assassination, but investigative journalists discovered that an agent of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, had been sitting outside Sheremet’s building the night the bomb was planted on his car. Ukraine blamed Russia, predictably, for Sheremet’s death, but some Ukrainians suspected a cover-up. Despite the rift in Russian-Ukrainian relations in recent years, the two countries often behave in strikingly similar ways.

A friend from Kiev happened to be staying with me on Tuesday, and I arrived home to find him in tears. He had been friendly with Babchenko and with many other journalists, including Russians who moved to Kiev after years of harassment and persecution. He spoke about his affection and admiration for Babchenko, and about the fear he felt for his other journalist friends. Would they be killed, too? We agreed that it was unlikely that the Ukrainian government would find Babchenko’s killer. If anyone would discover the truth, it would be journalists. And by investigating the killing, they might very well be risking their own lives.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter were surging with anguish. Babchenko had been known for his refusal to express sorrow over the deaths of people who supported Putin and his administration. Most notoriously, when a plane crash killed Russia’s Red Army choir en route to Syria, Babchenko proclaimed his lack of sympathy, given Russia’s military aggression; the backlash (including from the government) led to his flight to Ukraine. But most of the social media posts I saw after the announcement of his death forgave him his trespasses and remembered only his better qualities (which appear to be numerous). It was particularly agonising to read the statements of Babchenko’s fellow journalists, who had already seen too many colleagues killed, and who must have been reminded of the threat to their own lives. People started making plans to honour his memory, to help his widow and adopted children, and to pressure the Ukrainian government to find his killer.

The next morning, I began to see comments on social media that said Babchenko was alive: “Babchenko lives”. This phrase is often used metaphorically, for example in graffiti celebrating dead Russian rock stars, and I assumed this was the case here as well. But then I saw footage from an SBU press conference, with a reveal worthy of reality TV: Babchenko sauntered in unexpectedly, to the astonishment and applause of the audience. The murder had been staged, supposedly as a way of catching Russian operatives plotting Babchenko’s assassination. Someone is reportedly in custody, though it has not yet been explained how this was accomplished or why exactly it was necessary to fake the murder. In his remarks, Babchenko apologised to his wife.

For me, for my visiting friend, and for many others, relief soon gave way to doubts about the ethics and the wisdom of this “special operation”. On Facebook, the Ukrainian MP Anton Herashchenko tried to explain why it had been necessary to disseminate an artist’s sketch of a supposed killer “with a Caucasian appearance”. (Some Russian assassinations have been connected with Chechens, but immigrants from the Caucasus are also subject to brutal discrimination; Ukraine has an increasingly serious problem of ultranationalist attacks on ethnic and other minorities, as well as journalists.) Herashchenko admitted that the hoax caused pain to many – but after all, he wrote, Sherlock Holmes often staged his own death in order to solve crimes, causing pain to his loved ones and to Doctor Watson. The line between truth and fiction had become hopelessly blurred; it was all just stories. The literary reference reminded me of one of the more ludicrous Russian conspiracy theories about the attack on flight MH17: that the passengers were dead before the plane took off, as seen in the BBC series Sherlock.

In its endless one-upmanship against Russia, Ukraine has once again cut off its nose to spite its face, severely undermining its own credibility and that of journalists. This stunt also seems a gratuitous blow to what is left of public sincerity, compassion, and trust. Next time a journalist is killed in Ukraine (and, unfortunately, it seems certain that there will be a next time), even the least cynical observers, the kinds of people who wept all night over Babchenko’s supposed death, will likely wonder whether they should believe in a tragic death until they’ve inspected the corpse themselves. Conspiracy theories thrive on this kind of corrosive scepticism. Some Ukrainian commentators have been crowing that no one will be able to smear the Ukrainian security services after this brilliant victory. In fact, the Ukrainian authorities have done a magnificent job of smearing themselves.
• Sophie Pinkham is the author of Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine</s>KIEV: First, Ukraine announced the "murder" of prominent Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko late Tuesday, prompting an outpouring of grief and condemnation, and mutual accusations between Kiev and Moscow.

Then, in a stunning twist on Wednesday, the Ukraine security services revealed Babchenko was still alive, with his "killing" staged as a sting to catch the masterminds behind a real plot to assassinate him on orders of the Russian security services.

Here is an outline of how the top-secret operation panned out.

Babchenko's 'last post'

 On Tuesday morning at 0856 GMT, Babchenko writes a post on Twitter and Facebook about narrowly avoiding death four years ago when he failed to board a helicopter that crashed, referring to it as his "second birthday".

Police announce murder

 Hours later, at around 1800 GMT, Ukrainian police announce Babchenko has died after being hit by three bullets to the back in the stairwell of his apartment block in Kiev. Police say his wife called an ambulance after finding him bleeding but he died on route to hospital.

Later police early on Wednesday morning release a drawing of the suspected killer, describing him as a bearded man with a noticeable belly. Police say they are primarily looking into Babchenko's "professional activities" as the motive.

Aide to the Ukraine interior minister Anton Gerashchenko posts a photograph of Babchenko lying facedown in a pool of blood.

Russia condemns murder

 Russia's Investigative Committee says at 1930 GMT that it has launched its own probe, adding it will not ignore "cruel crimes" against Russians in Ukraine.

Ukraine PM blames Russia

 Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman writes on Twitter at 1936 GMT: "I am convinced that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and principled stance.

"A true friend of Ukraine who was telling the world the truth about Russian aggression. His murderers should be punished."

He also reposts Babchenko's final social media message about dodging death.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin later mentions the murder at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Russia points finger at Kiev

 The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement at 1955 GMT condemns the murder, saying that "bloody crimes and total lawlessness have become routine for the Kiev regime" and that violent attacks and murders of journalists are "steadily rising" in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov comments on Wednesday at 0700 GMT, calling the death a "tragedy" and predicting Kiev will blame Russian security services.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists at 1000 GMT that "We strongly condemn this killing" and said Ukraine had become a "very dangerous place" for journalists. He calls Kiev's blaming Russia for the killing the "height of cynicism."

The big reveal

 A news conference called by Ukraine's SBU security service starts at 1400 GMT in Kiev. Minutes later, head of the service Vasyl Grytsak ushers Babchenko into the room to gasps and applause from journalists and congratulates him on his "third birthday."

Babchenko says he was told of the planned killing by Ukrainian security services a month ago. He apologises to his wife for putting her through "hell".

Grytsak says that the organiser who tried to arrange the contract killing was detained in Kiev around three hours earlier.

Russia condemns 'provocation'

 Russia's foreign ministry late Wednesday condemned what it called an "anti-Russian provocation," criticising the statements by Ukrainian officials. It calls on Kiev to investigate "real murders".

Babchenko vows to live to 96

 Babchenko on Twitter vows to "die at 96 after dancing on Putin's grave".</s>MOSCOW (AP) — Police in the capital of Ukraine say a Russian journalist has been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment.</s>Ukraine Intelligence Agents Say They Staged Killing Of Russian Journalist, Who Is Alive

Ukraine intelligence agents say they staged the apparent murder of a Russian journalist in Kiev in an attempt to trap a real assassin.

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. The popular misquote of Mark Twain seems appropriate for our next story. Those are words Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko could have used today. NPR's Lucian Kim reports on how the journalist's supposed murder has once again pitted Ukraine against its Russian neighbor.

LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: The news broke late Tuesday evening in Kiev. Arkady Babchenko, a Russian journalist and vocal critic of the Kremlin, had been shot dead at his apartment in the Ukrainian capital.

KIM: The TV news report sounded horrible. Babchenko, who had fled Russia after being threatened by Russian lawmakers, had been murdered in cold blood after returning home after buying a loaf of bread. Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman pinned responsibility for the murder on what he called the Russian totalitarian machine, and colleagues poured out their emotions at interviews and on social media.

KIM: Yevgenia Albats, one of Babchenko's former editors, told a Moscow radio station that now every Russian journalist was in mortal danger. A familiar blame game began, with the Kremlin saying the Ukrainians had barely begun their investigation but were already pointing the finger at Moscow.

KIM: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Babchenko's death a tragedy. He said accusations against Russia were groundless, just like the claims that Russia had poisoned a former Russian double agent in England or had been involved in the downing of a Malaysian passenger plane over eastern Ukraine. Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, accused the Ukrainians of the height of cynicism. And Russian investigators even offered their services to their Ukrainian colleagues, since Babchenko was a Russian citizen.

In fact, the Ukrainian authorities don't exactly have a great record in clearing up contract killings. Two years ago, Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet died in a car bombing on a Kiev street, and the case still hasn't been solved. This time, however, the Ukraine police produced a sketch of Babchenko's killer in no time. And the SBU, Ukraine's security agency, scheduled a press conference on the murder for Wednesday. Journalists who showed up were stunned when SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak suddenly introduced a supposed victim, Arkady Babchenko, alive and unhurt.

Babchenko's murder had been faked, Hrytsak said, to uncover an actual plot against him by Russian intelligence. Babchenko said the sting operation was so secret that not even his own wife knew about it.

KIM: Babchenko apologized to his wife, Olga, for the hell he had put her through but said he didn't have an option. Reaction to the news has been mixed. Some of Babchenko's colleagues said they were relieved he was alive but concerned that he had damaged the credibility of their profession. Reporters Without Borders expressed its deepest indignation with the Ukrainian Security Service for using a journalist to play with the facts. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
Arkady Babchenko, who was reportedly assassinated yesterday in Kiev, Ukraine, appears on live television stating that the assassination was staged.