Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist , reveals Ukraine staged the murder in Kiev on Tuesday to foil a Moscow plot to kill him. His arrival at a news conference on Wednesday, sent shock waves around the world and fools world’s media.
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.”
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.
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’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.
The Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev dubbed Babchenko “a total ass” and said in brackets, “I’m glad he’s alive, of course.”
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.”
Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a former colleague of Babchenko, wrote on Twitter, “Babchenko is a journalist not a policeman, for Christ sake, and part of our job is trust, whatever Trump & Putin say about fake news. I’m glad he is alive, but he undermined even further the credibility of journalists and the media.”
Russia’s foreign ministry condemned the staged assassination, calling it “obviously yet another anti-Russian provocation”.
>Juthy Saha
Russian Journalist Faked His Murder With Ukraine
