Russian journalist who criticised Kremlin shot dead in Kiev

A prominent Russian journalist and critic of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead in Ukraine where he had fled into exile following threats, police said on Tuesday,reports Reuters.

Arkady Babchenko, 41, died of his wounds in an ambulance after his wife found him covered in his blood in their home, police said, adding they suspected the murder was due to Babchenko’s professional activities.

Babchenko, a former soldier in the Chechen war who became one of Russia’s best-known war correspondents, had left his homeland fearing for his life after criticising Russian policy in Ukraine and Syria.

He had been denounced by pro-government politicians in Russia over comments on social media about the Russian bombing of Aleppo in Syria’s war, and over his characterisation of Russia as an aggressor towards Ukraine.

“The first and the most probable version is his professional activity,” Kiev police chief Andriy Kryshchenko said at a televised press briefing when asked what police suspected lay behind the murder.

Babchenko’s wife is in a state of shock and police are unable to speak to her, he said. Ukrainian authorities released a drawing of the man they suspect is Babchenko’s assassin, around 40-45 years old, with a grey beard and wearing a cap.

Two years ago Pavel Sheremet, a Belarussian journalist known for his criticism of his home country’s leadership and his friendship with the slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was blown up in a car bomb in central Kiev.