In the evening of 29 May, Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko was reportedly shot dead in his back on the doorstep of his Kyiv apartment. The vocal critic of the regime of Vladimir Putin lived in the Ukrainian capital since August 2017 after he fled Russia due to death threats to him and his family.
A day later, the SBU revealed that Babchenko was alive and his “assassination” was a sting operation to catch the organizer of the contracted murder red-handed.
Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko describes how his death was staged – he says he rehearsed how to fall as though he'd been shot, and put on a shirt that already had bullet holes in it https://t.co/HPSl2YVCxV pic.twitter.com/9gOZmD693A
— CNN International (@cnni) May 31, 2018
Read more: Russian journalist Babchenko alive, SBU staged his “assassination” to catch organizer [Updated]
Twenty hours of “death”
Russia has managed to do much within the 20-hour timeframe between the reported assassination and the SBU press briefing where Babchenko refuted his death himself and disclosed some details of the SBU sting operation to save his life.
Here are some of the actions performed by the Russian top officials and state bodies:
- Less than an hour after the reported murder, the Russian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case “into the murder of Russian citizen Arkady Babchenko in Kyiv.”
- The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that “the Ukrainian authorities make every effort to promptly investigate the crime.”
- Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it was “very sad” that Moscow has been accused of murdering anti-Kremlin journalist Arkady Babchenko.
- Russian ombudsperson Tatyana Moskalkova told that she planned to ask her Ukrainian counterpart, Liudmyla Denysova, to assume personal control over the investigation.
- Some two hours after the news on Babchenko’s death, the Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya mentioned Babchenko’s reported death in a lengthy speech, telling that Ukraine would blame Russia for the assassination, implying that Russia, of course, wasn’t guilty.
- Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “We vigorously condemn this murder and hope for the real, not flawed investigation. Ukraine becomes a very dangerous place for journalists.” (As we can see how Russia reacts to the MH17 investigation, a real one means one where Russia won’t be guilty).
- Speaker of the Federation Council Nina Matvienko said that “Russia is ready to render aid to his [Babchenko’s] family.”
- Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin stated that Russian law enforcement authorities were ready to help Kyiv in the investigation.
- A memorial plaque to Babchenko was unveiled on a memorial wall near the Moscow-based “House of Journalists” (and it was hastily taken down after it turned out that he was alive).
- On the next day minutes before the SBU press briefing at which Babchenko revealed his staged death, the Russian Foreign Ministry published another statement urging the “OSCE, UNESCO, special reporters of the UN Human Rights Council and the entire international human rights community” to step up “their efforts on compelling the Ukrainian authorities to take effective measures to ensure the physical security of journalists and protect their rights, as well as to observe Ukraine’s international legal commitments on the freedom of expression.”
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stressed that the Russian reaction on the reported Babchenko’s death was prompt and coordinated:
Just read one more time how promptly and in a coordinated way #Russia reacted to the news about Arkady #Babchenko‘s death. Any doubts why?
— Pavlo Klimkin (@PavloKlimkin) May 30, 2018
After revealing the sting operation
The SBU sting operation angered press freedom groups and some media.
OSCE media freedom representative Harlem Désir said that the state should “provide correct information to the public”:
Relieved that Arkadiy #Babchenko is alive! 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.
— OSCE media freedom (@OSCE_RFoM) May 30, 2018
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the “distressing simulation of Russian exile journalist Arkady Babchenko’s murder, which was done with the aim of unmasking those who wanted to kill him.”
RSF expresses its deepest indignation after discovering the manipulation of the Ukrainian secret services, this new step of a war of information. It is always very dangerous for a government to play with the facts, especially using journalists for their fake stories. https://t.co/XwwbepYsjc
— Christophe Deloire (@chrisdeloire) May 30, 2018
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire commented, “Was such a scheme really necessary? There can be no grounds for faking a journalist’s death.”
In his comment to the Atlantic Council, Global Affairs Analyst and Former OSCE Spokesperson Michael Bociurkiw said, “The explanation is irrelevant. This could have been staged differently. What happened has crossed a line: the fake scenario not only duped the public but also journalists and colleagues.”
On 31 May in his post on Facebook, Arkady Babchenko revealed what he feels after the operation has been completed,
“My God, how it’s great not to be a target! When you know for sure – that’s it, for this time. Finished. They [the Russian FSB – ed.] won’t shoot you. A couple of days they will be shocked, then a couple more weeks they will pretend it was raining, then a couple weeks they will be screwed for the blown operation, God willing, someone will be fired – [if so] then I will have a great lot of time, and if they won’t [dismiss anyone], then anyway they will need a few months to build new schemes, find a new doer, search for firearms, bring money and for other technical issues. And this means you obviously have a couple of months up to the moment when you are paranoid again, no matter whether they hunt you again or not. I guess this will be the best couple of months in my life’s recent years…” he wrote.
“They came to the morgue, they put me on the tray, the doors were closed behind me and then I was resurrected.”
The Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who faked his own death, gives his first interview pic.twitter.com/iuHv5mpXML
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) May 31, 2018
Being asked to comment on the notes that it’s unacceptable to mislead the press because not every end justifies the means, Babchenko said,
“I wish for all such morally upstanding “unacceptablers” to find themselves in the same situation and show their adherence to high moral principles and die, standing tall and not unacceptably misleading the media. It’s, well, so that you practice what you preach. May success attend you, good luck, and an assassin to your door – I believe in you, guys, you won’t let us down!”
Ukraine’s Ambassador to Austria Oleksandr Shcherba expressed his amazement on the matter:
https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1001887789900853248
Many critics of the SBU operation believe that the staged “murder” undermines the international and domestic trust in the Ukrainian Government and discredits media as well. However, they mention no real alternative options to the sting operation, which could both save the journalist’s life and help to detain the organizer.
Here are some opinions by journalists and public figures:
That's a pretty silly comparison. The Ukrainians are saying quite clearly that they did this as a sting operation, whereas the Russians are simply lying about all these things.
— James Marson (@marson_jr) May 30, 2018
“Ukraine is just like Russia”
So #Babchenko is actually alive. That's wonderful
But this smacks of a gimmick by #Ukraine:
1. next time there's some killing, #Russia will be able to play the "do you know this is real?" card
2. we're told "the killer" was caught. Stand by for an entrapment defence?— Mark Galeotti (@MarkGaleotti) May 30, 2018
Russia is suspected in killing 14 Russians in UK. London stayed mum. Then Russia tried to kill the Skripals with a nerve agent. Remaining quiet was no longer possible. Do criticize #Ukraine, but what was the real alternative? https://t.co/JDDycXnawE
— Vahur Koorits (@VahurKoorits) May 31, 2018
“What was the real alternative?”
As for Russian propaganda exploiting this "fake news," so what? They lie about everything anyway already. It's like giving ammunition to a gun store. There are dozens of murdered Russian dissidents & journalists who won't be coming back.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) May 30, 2018
“[Russian propaganda] lies about everything anyway already,” highlights Russian dissident politician Garry Kasparov, who had fled Putin’s Russia to the USA.
The question I have about this operation to "expose Russian agents" is whether it was worth the discrediting of every credible news agency, columnist and reporter, especially in Russia, who believed Ukrainian officials when they reported Arkady Babenko's death. https://t.co/rvgm71aBPJ
— David Filipov (@davidfilipov) May 30, 2018
No. Nobody has been discredited. There was a sting, it saved the life of a good man, culprits caught, & then public informed. https://t.co/GWO5LbSUpQ
— Paul Niland (@PaulNiland) May 30, 2018
“Was it worth discrediting of every credible news agency?” “Nobody was discredited”
Read this @AFP piece about SpecOp of French surveillance agency back in 1982 as precedent for yesterdays @ServiceSsu operation to save the life of Russian journalist and critic of Kremlin's aggressive policy @StarshinaZapasa. #StopRussianAggression https://t.co/K8EesLxusq
— Oleksii MAKEIEV 🇺🇦 (@Makeiev) May 31, 2018
There was a Franco-Romanian precedent for Babchenko faux death.
Meanwhile, Arkady Babchenko himself pushed back against criticism that he had undermined trust in journalism by participating in the SBU operation, saying his aim was to keep himself and his family safe. “I was thinking about my survival,” he said to the press briefing on 31 May, “not journalistic ethics.”
Answering a question on the SBU operation, Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Maja Kocijančič has said that Ukraine has right to protect its national interest,
The Ukrainian Embassies to Great Britain and to Finland have published a statement clarifying the official position, it reads, Other journalists in private conversations with Euromaidan Press contended that such an operation is acceptable only if there was no other way to handle the situation, and wondered whether the operation was a staged provocation. In his first interview after the “resurrection,” Babchenko said that he doubted that his faked murder was an SBU provocation. So many people were involved into the operation (SBU, police, hospital, special forces, top officials, including the president) that it would be strange to believe they had nothing else to do than plan this provocation, he says. But was the deception absolutely necessary or not? After all, the assassin himself, a veteran of the Donbas war, upon being recruited came to the SBU himself after which they started collaborating. The SBU had known the name of the middleman before the operation was carried out. So why the need for such a play? Answering the question why they staged a faked murder of the Russian journalist, the Prosecutor General’s Office (GPU) told that it allowed receiving the list of 30 other planned assassinations, which came up in conversations of the middleman, “Citizen H.” GPU spokeswoman Larysa Sarhan told Ukrainska Pravda that “it had to be staged to bring the fact of the commissioned murder and executed murder to the finish line, and then receive the very same list of 30 people from the client.” According to her, the list was actually received. Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said that the fake assassination had the goal of”receiving more information about this list during the second tranche of payment for the implemented murder” and “to track the connections of the middleman with the mastermind after the murder.” He claims that enough facts were gathered to testify “in favor of the Russian version of the mastermind.” Levytskyi said that these steps already constitute a crime and that the middleman, “Citizen H,” could have been apprehended at this time. However, the expert said, in that case, he would have had many opportunities to defend himself, deny everything, say that he was misunderstood. That’s why law enforcers imitate murders: to receive definite proof and identify the middlemen and masterminds of the crime. “When some moments need to be registered: converations, transfer of money, then something is imitated. When there is a goal to fixate the completion of the crime in the imagination of the middleman – and then he can contact the mastermind. The law enforcers try to establish the contacts between the middleman and the mastermind,” Levytskyi said. The investigation into the identity of the mastermind is continuing, the Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko informed. Meanwhile, the SBU Head Vasyl Hrytsak told about “irrevocable proof of the terrorist activity of Russian special services in Ukraine.” /with contributions by Alya Shandra Read also:
What the Secret Service and Prosecutor General’s Office say
