Our episode today focuses on Arkady Babchenko:
Arkady Babchenko, a Russian reporter who had criticized Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his support for the separatists of southeast Ukraine, was reported found dead on May 29. His death was reported as being related to a Facebook post he’d written in 2017 that caused enough scandal to force him to flee the country. He wrote before leaving that Russia was “a country I no longer feel safe in.”
May 30, it was reported that he had faked his death in order to assist Ukrainian authorities with capturing men who had been planning to kill him.
The international news was less than favorable. Everyone from the Guardian to the Washington Post criticized the move, and this tweet from Harlem Desir, representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Freedom of Media account, gives an idea of the general sentiment:
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
In a Washington Post editorial, Ukrainian journalist Maxim Eristavi takes issue with international criticism of the operation: “Saving the life of a journalist in Eastern Europe is worth celebrating. In our part of the world, where dozens of reporters have been murdered just for doing their jobs, survival is already an achievement.”
It’s clear there are some details we’re all missing, like how faking his death helped capture his would-be assassins, and who his would-be assassins even were. But it’s an intriguing story given the Putin administration’s long and ugly history in which critics of the Putin administration have ended up dead or injured, even after fleeing Russia, including such famous cases as Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Nemtsov.
For more on the history of Russian assassinations and for Adam and Quincy wondering about Babchenko’s odd story, check out the episode!
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Sources (there are a lot of them this time, folks)–
Babchenko:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/29/russian-journalist-arkady-babchenko-shot-dead-in-kiev
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/31/arkady-babchenko-murder-fake-russia-ukraine
Putin before the presidency:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/putins-way/transcript/
2006–Russia reinstates a rule allowing for targeted killings abroad:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6188658.stm
Liquidation of Chechens abroad:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5083136/The-Chechen-warlords-murdered-across-the-world.html
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/world/qatar-court-convicts-2-russians-in-top-chechen-s-death.html
Killings of those that doubted the 1999 apartment bombings:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060310062954/http://www.eng.terror99.ru/publications/107.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/alexander-litvinenko-the-man-who-solved-his-own-murder
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5155448.stm
Sergei Magnitsky:
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/world/europe/24kremlin.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
Death possibly tied to Ramzan Kadyrov:
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/world/europe/31chechnya.html
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/world/europe/01iht-chechen.2.19839666.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/14/AR2006101400805.html?noredirect=on
http://politkovskaya.novayagazeta.ru/pub/2004/2004-051.shtml
https://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_ramzan_kadyrov_a_challenge_to_the_kremlin3013
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-politkovskaya-last-interview-10th-anniversary/28035942.html
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/europe/18estemirova.html
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://newsru.com/russia/15jul2009/natalia.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/16/murder-chechnya-natalia-estemirova-russia
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/how-putin-created-a-monster-in-chechnya-213583
Boris Nemtsov:
shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2dS3zEVIQI
Attacks in Ukraine:
https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/a-chechen-fighter-was-killed-in-a-kyiv-car-bombing-who-was-he
shttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/world/europe/ukraine-kiev-bomb-assassination.html
Attacks on Russians in Great Britain:
