Kiev says uncovered plot to kill 47 after staging journalist’s murder

Ukraine on Friday said that its sting operation involving the staged murder of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko had resulted in it uncovering a list of 47 people, mostly journalists, who were potential targets for further attacks.

Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko wrote on Facebook that the controversial operation, which involved top officials lying in public about Babchenko’s death, had helped security services uncover a list of 47 people, mainly Ukrainian and Russian emigre journalists, who “could be the next victims of terrorists.”

Lutsenko said they had all been informed and arrangements were being made for their safety.

Kiev-based journalist Matvei Ganapolsky, who works for Russian Echo of Moscow radio, told the station that he and another prominent journalist Evgeniy Kiselev had both been summoned by the Ukrainian security service and warned of potential risk to their safety by its head Vasyl Grytsak and Lutsenko.

Ganapolsky said he was also shown additional materials on the Babchenko attack that showed “this is all serious and a real attack was in fact being prepared, they were planning to kill him.”

Earlier Ukrainian authorities said that the Russian secret services had envisaged killing not only Babchenko but some 30 others.

– Western diplomats briefed –

Ukrainian law enforcement chiefs including Lutsenko earlier on Friday met Western diplomats to brief them on Kiev’s decision to stage a contract-style killing of Babchenko, which has prompted widespread criticism.

Around a dozen diplomats went to Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office for a meeting with Lutsenko and Grytsak behind closed doors that lasted nearly two hours, AFP journalists saw.

The diplomats were told that staging Babchenko’s murder over more than 12 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday — with law enforcement officials and even the country’s president issuing false statements — allowed them to “prevent the journalist’s death,” the Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a statement.

The Ukrainian authorities were also able to “fully document the organiser’s criminal actions,” gaining information on “possible potential victims, against whom it is likely terror attacks and murders were being planned,” the statement said.

Lutsenko told diplomats his officers had carried out a “large-scale and complex operation” and the public would be informed of the details as far as possible during the criminal investigation.

Diplomats attended from the Group of Seven countries — Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Britain, Italy and Japan — as well as Australia, Norway, and the European Union and Council of Europe.

Ukrainian police announced on Tuesday evening that Babchenko, a Russian emigre journalist known for his outspoken anti-Kremlin views, had been shot dead, only for him to reappear alive and well at a news conference at the SBU headquarters the following day.

The SBU and the Prosecutor-General’s Office then revealed that the announcement of his death, which prompted a grief-stricken reaction around the world, had been made as part of a sting operation.

Kiev has said the move was justified to foil a real plot to assassinate Babchenko and confirm the link between the killer and the organiser.

The way the murder was staged has attracted much criticism, particularly from organisations representing journalists, which questioned the need for such extreme tactics.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who was visiting Kiev on Friday, said ahead of his visit that it was “indispensable to shed light on what happened” and called on Ukraine to clarify the situation in order to “encourage trust”.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Artyom Kozhin said at a briefing in Moscow on Friday that Kiev’s actions “have definitively undermined trust in Ukrainian sources of information, including official ones”.

He noted however that “We are in principle glad that Babchenko is alive.”