Everyone thought he was dead, possibly including his own family. On Tuesday, prominent Putin critic and Russian war correspondent Arkady Babchenko was widely reported to have been shot outside his apartment in Kiev, Ukraine. He was said to have been found by his wife, and to have died in an ambulance en route to the hospital. But the next day, Babchenko showed up to a press conference[1], undeniably alive.
It turns out Ukrainian authorities helped Babchenko fake his own death, in a stunning, nearly unprecedented plot orchestrated to protect the prominent journalist from actual harm. The head of Ukraine's security services, Vasyl Gritsak, told reporters at Wednesday's press conference that law enforcement arranged the made-up murder in an apparently successful effort to catch criminals who really did intend to kill Babchenko.
The audacious scheme has since raised concerns from other prominent Russian journalists—and has the world wondering how Ukrainian authorities pulled it off.
Faking Your Own Death
At the press conference, Babchenko apologized to his wife Olechka, though it was not clear what role, if any, she played in the operation. He also said it took two months to execute the plan, and that it had been successful. "One person has been detained," he said, according to a translation of the conference posted by Sky News[2]. Gritsak later added that authorities have identified a Ukrainian citizen who was allegedly paid $40,000 to kill the reporter.
"I would like to apologize for what you all had to go through...because I've buried friends and colleagues many times, and I know it's a sickening-vomiting feeling when you have to bury your colleagues," Babchenko reportedly[3] said. A video[4] was later posted to Twitter purportedly showing Babchenko's coworkers at the Ukrainian TV