She was in the bathroom when three gun shots sounded outside of her apartment in Kyiv. Arkady Babchenko’s wife ran out to find her husband lying face down in the entrance to their apartment building with gunshot wounds in his back, bleeding to death. Babchenko, 41, was pronounced dead in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Only that did not happen. Covered in pig’s blood, Babchenko played dead on the drive to the morgue, where he watched news break about his death.
No-one doubted the legitimacy of the reports. Babchenko was a Russian journalist and a prominent Kremlin critic. The hit bore all the hallmarks of the politically motivated murders that have occurred in Ukraine, Russia and other countries where working as a dissident journalist means a life of elusive safety. In Ukraine, the news struck a raw nerve exposed by other recent assassinations. In March 2017, Denis Voronenkov, a former MP in the Russia who had been involved in key investigations that uncovered corruption in Russian security apparatus.In 2016 Pavel Sheremet, a Belarusian journalist and virulent critic of President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko was killed by a car bomb in central Kyiv.
Articles quickly surfaced paying homage to Babchenko — a Russian soldier who served in both of Russia’s brutal wars in Chechnya, turned journalist with a legendary reputation as a ruthless critic of Russia’s invasions of Georgia and Ukraine.
When Babchenko appeared alive and well at a press conference in Kyiv the next day, elation and relief erupted, but so did much confusion and anger over the false news, and congratulations over a brilliant operation that saved the life of the Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko,
During a news conference, Vasily Gritsak, head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), said the agency faked Babchenko’s death to thwart the plan to kill him and some 30 other Russian exiles in Ukraine. Prosecutors say Russia’s security services (FSB) paid a Ukrainian citizen $40,000 to hire a killer to eliminate Babchenko. The SBU allegedly spent two months planning the sting operation. Not even his wife knew. On 6 June, the story took another dramatic turn when the SBU claimed to have discovered a “hit list” of 47 people — journalists and activists in Ukraine — targeted by the Kremlin.
Statements from the Ukrainian authorities praised the operation as a successful show of resistance against the Russian enemy. Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko declared: “Everything that you saw yesterday was the result of a brilliant special operation by heroes from the [SBU]. The whole world saw the true face of our enemy,” he added.
But international observers, such as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) expressed its “deepest indignation after discovering the manipulation of the Ukrainian secret services, this new step of a war of information”.
As the shock begins to settle, journalists in Ukraine reflect about the many questions that remain unanswered, and what the operation says about the government’s relationship to the media.
Prominent Ukrainian journalist, Maksym Eristravi, said foreign criticism is premature and comes from a position of Western privilege. “I am not discarding the concerns about the case and I think it’s important to analyse whether there were strong links to Russia. At the same time, we’re seeing premature criticism that is not based on actual facts presented by law enforcement. It’s insulting to Ukrainian public.” He argues in a region where violence against journalists has become routine, we should celebrate the government’s success in protecting Babchenko.”
Many Ukrainian journalists, like Olena Maksymenko, a Kyiv based military correspondent, celebrate Babchenko’s well being but are not ready to congratulate the operation. Maksymenko questions lack of hard evidence presented by the government to demonstrate Babchenko’s life was really threatened, and that staging a murder was the only solution to save the journalist. “It’s hard to make any real conclusion about this very untypical case. Right now it’s like great theatre. But we can’t call it a great operation until we get the facts.”
A Ukrainian Kyiv-based journalist, who wishes to remain anonymous said: “Without facts and evidence, what’s to stop us calling it a government PR stunt?”
But Peter Dickinson, a Kyiv based publisher of Business Ukraine magazine and editor-at-large at The Odessa Review, said the operation served a much wider intended purpose than saving Babchenko’s life. “The authorities already had evidence that Babchenko’s life was at risk. The only reason to stage the death is to catch Russia’s ‘death squad’ in Ukraine. By manipulating the public the government broke a sacred rule in some respects and to justify it, we need to see concrete evidence of how the Russians are operating in Ukraine — details of the structure.”
A major point of the criticism is the damage to the credibility of journalism in Ukraine. As Johann Bihr from the RSF said: “Such a scheme risks to reinforce the public’s distrust in journalists and to discredit calls to protect them and fight impunity.”
Chris Miller, a correspondent at Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said the staged murder could especially undermine independent journalists, and further widen the gap between state and independent media.
Miller referred to a recent instance in which Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutsenko, derided journalists who questioned the authenticity of the threat to Babchenko’s life as ‘unpatriotic’. “Media that is loyal to the government and simply accepts statements is seen as ‘patriotic’, while independent journalists who seek out facts and evidence are labelled ‘traitors’. This completely undermines the role of journalism as a public service.”
The faked murder has been widely seen as a exacerbating blow in Russia’s ongoing hybrid war on Ukraine.
“Ukraine — a victim of Russian disinformation — should not use disinformation against Russia. It shouldn’t play into this game,” said Miller.
Vasiliy Gatov, a Russian media researcher and author, said it will fuel Russia’s disinformation. “Russia will undoubtedly use the staged murder in its domestic discourse to slander Ukraine’s government. The truth is, the next time a report emerges about a journalist hurt or killed in Ukraine, the Kremlin will say it’s fake.” This is already becoming evident. Russian deputies and state media, called the operation a “propaganda” exercise, while 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.
The Kyiv-based journalist says the entire operation reflects the government’s low level of respect for journalists. “We’re seen exclusively as providers for the government’s message.”
“I interviewed some journalists who fled Russia and they said that they’re really scared. They feel either that they’re a threat from Russia, or they’re potential objects of manipulation from the government for PR ends.”
Photo: Creative Commons