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Ukraine’s PM says “Russia’s totalitarian machine” murdered journalist Arkady Babchenko

“I am confident that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and principled stance.”
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Moscow has dismissed accusations by Ukraine’s prime minister that the “Russian totalitarian machine” was responsible for the assassination of prominent Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was killed outside his apartment in Kiev Tuesday.

The 41-year-old, gunned down as he went to buy some bread, was found by his wife lying in a pool of blood at the entrance to their block of flats. Babchenko died in an ambulance on the way to hospital.

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Police in the Ukrainian capital say the murder may have been linked to Babchenko’s “professional activities” and released a sketch of the suspected gunman, showing a bearded man wearing a baseball hat.

A prominent Kremlin critic, Babchenko had strongly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and his annexation of Ukraine in 2014, as well as his ongoing support for the Syrian regime.

Babchenko fled his home country in 2017 after receiving death threats for his outspoken views. He said in a Guardian article at the time that Russia was “a country I no longer feel safe in.”

The high-profile murder has increased the already tense relationship between Russia and Ukraine.

“I am confident that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and principled stance,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said in a Facebook post late Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hit back Wednesday, dismissing the claims as part of Kiev’s anti-Moscow stance.

“The investigation has not even started and the prime minister of the Ukrainian government has already announced that the Russian intelligence services did it,” Lavrov said, according to state-run news agency Tass.

Babchenko is the fourth Russian Kremlin critic to be murdered in Kiev in two years; all of the killings have been attributed to Moscow by the Ukrainian government. None of the murders have been solved.

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In a statement the Kremlin said these “bloody crimes" had become routine for the “Kiev regime.”

Babchenko’s final Facebook post Tuesday eerily recalled a close escape from death four years ago to the day. He had planned to fly with Ukrainian soldiers on a helicopter to the war zone in eastern Ukraine but was not allowed on board as there was not enough space.

The helicopter was later shot down by pro-Russian rebels, leaving 14 people dead.

“I was lucky. A second birthday, it turns out,” Babchenko wrote. Hours later, he was dead.

Cove image: Ukrainian National guard servicemen stand in front of Russian embassy in Kiev, on May 30, 2018, where portraits of journalist Arkadi Babchenko have been hung by activists to the fence one day after he was shot in his apartment building in the Ukrainian capital. (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)