A Babchenko update from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and Current Time TV:
Back From The Dead, Russian Journalist Vows To Live To 'Dance On Putin's Grave'
A dissident Russian journalist has blasted "the keepers of morality" who criticized his faked assassination by Ukrainian authorities, and vowed to live long enough to dance on President Vladimir Putin's grave.
In a Facebook post late on May 30, Arkady Babchenko promised to "die at the age of 96, having danced on Putin's grave" as well as taking a selfie standing on a tank" on Tverskoi [Bulvar in downtown Moscow]."
He later wrote a post railing against "the keepers of morality, who are dissatisfied with the fact that I somehow wrongly, in their opinion, did not die.”
Ukraine's security service, the SBU, announced on May 30 that Babchenko was still alive, one day after it was reported he had been killed by a gunman in Kyiv.
The secret service said it had carried out the fake assassination in order to foil a Russian plot to kill the 41-year-old critic of the Kremlin.
Babchenko himself made a dramatic appearance at the televised press conference in Kyiv, where he has lived in exile since the autumn of 2017, saying "there was no other way."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- who said he was aware of the plot to fake Babchenko's death -- later met with the journalist.
"We finally learned to defend," Poroshenko said. "Defend the country, defend its citizens and do it with extraordinary professional efforts of the new Security Service, which is capable of passing exams of any complexity."
The Ukrainian Embassy in London* said in a May 31 statement that the "hybrid war" waged by Russia against Ukraine "demands unorthodox approaches while effecting countermeasures. No other way to uncover the Russian-schemed attempt at Mr. Babchenko’s life had existed than a special operation conducted in full secrecy."
'Pathetic And Regrettable'
But the SBU operation is also receiving heavy criticism from media watchdogs, journalists, and others who say it undermined the credibility of journalists and of Ukrainian officials.
"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," said Harlem Desir, the representative on the freedom of the media for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
In Paris, Reporters Without Borders head Christophe Deloire said that staging Babchenko’s death "would not help the cause of press freedom."
"It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive...for the stunt," he added.
And the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said "this extreme action by the Ukrainian authorities has the potential to undermine public trust in journalists and to mute outrage when they are killed."
Moscow -- which Ukrainian officials had initially accused of being behind Babchenko's killing -- denounced the incident as a provocation.
Relations between Moscow and Kyiv have been badly damaged by Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014 and backing for separatist militants in a devastating war in eastern Ukraine.
SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak said on May 30 that the agency received information about a plot to kill 30 people in Ukraine, including Babchenko. The security service declined to say who the other 29 people were.
Hrytsak said a detained Ukrainian citizen in the case -- a former separatist fighter in eastern Ukraine -- was recruited by Russia to find someone to kill Babchenko.
The Ukrainian suspect was given $40,000 to organize the killing of the journalist -- $30,000 for the killer and $10,000 for being an intermediary.
On May 31, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Hrytsak "should account for his words."
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier described the Ukrainian operation as a "masquerade" done for "propagandistic effect."