Ukraine gave Russia a reason to strengthen its position – BBC
By staging the murder of a Russian journalist in Kyiv on Tuesday, Ukraine will further muddy the waters with this fake news.
The BBC writes about this in the article “Arkady Babchenko: Ukraine falsified the murder of a journalist.”
Reactions to the re-enactment varied, media reported. Thus, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the organized murder, calling it “obviously another anti-Russian provocation.”
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the operation as a "masquerade" done for "propaganda effect." She added that Russia was happy that Babchenko was alive. “I wish it were,” she said.
In turn, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that the country would offer Babchenko protection. “It is unlikely that Moscow will calm down,” he wrote on Twitter. “I gave the order to provide protection to Arkady and his family.”
Free Europe/Radio Liberty tweeted a video of Babchenko's colleagues reacting to the news that he was alive. But many were wary of the tactics of the Ukrainian security services. Reporters Without Borders condemned the operation as a "pathetic stunt."
"It is sad and regrettable that the Ukrainian police played with the truth, whatever their motives," the organization's head, Christophe Delors, told AFP.
The Committee to Protect Journalists demanded that authorities explain “what required this extreme measure,” calling the incident on Twitter an “unprecedented situation.”
Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a former colleague of Babchenko, said faking his death was “crossing the border.” “Babchenko is a journalist, a police officer, for God’s sake, and part of our job is trust, no matter what Trump and Putin say about “fake news,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m glad he’s alive, but he has further undermined trust in journalists and in the media.”
Another journalist and also a friend of Babchenko, Simon Ostrovsky, told the BBC that he felt “anger and relief in equal measure.” “From grief and sadness yesterday... to genuine anger today, we were all deceived into believing that our friend was dead,” Ostrovsky said.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner called the incident a prime example of "fake news."
“There could hardly be a clearer example of “fake news” than the deliberate dissemination by a sovereign government of false information about the death of a prominent journalist,” he writes.
“Relations between Russia and Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine are worse than ever. Russia has already been blamed several times for the recent deaths of Kremlin opponents in Ukraine. But this staged death will muddy the waters even more. Russia has already denied any involvement in the attempt on the life of its former spy Sergei Skripal, calling it "fake news."
Now, most likely, she will use this deception in Kyiv to strengthen her position in this case and many others,” writes Frank Gardner.
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