Anti-Kremlin journo shot dead in Kiev

Bloomberg

A Russian journalist critical of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead at his home in Kiev, the third assassination in two years of a Kremlin foe in Ukraine’s capital.
Arkady Babchenko, who moved to the city last year following threats in his homeland, was fired on after returning from buying bread and died of his injuries in an ambulance, local police said. They said the killing may relate to his work.
The murder will further strain ties between Ukraine and Russia, post-Soviet allies who fell out following the ouster of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin leader in 2014. That prompted Putin to annex Crimea and back a war on the two nations’ border. The incident will also resonate beyond the ex-communist space after the nerve-agent attack on a Russian double agent and his daughter in the UK this year triggered diplomatic expulsions around the world.
“Russia’s totalitarian machine didn’t forgive him his honesty,” Ukrainian PM Volodymyr Hroisman said on Facebook. “He was a real friend of Ukraine who told the truth to the world about Russian aggression.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained that his country is being accused without proof, calling the killing “a tragedy.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it’s “the height of cynicism” to accuse Russia of involvement.
The EU condemned the killing, saying in a statement that “each time that a voice of freedom is violently silenced, it risks weakening our societies and undermining our democracies.” Unlike the suspected political motive behind Babchenko’s death, the continent has seen journalists probing corruption and the mafia killed in Malta and Slovakia.