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'Murdered' Journalist Is Alive and Well
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dev_north_east 8y ago> "The journalist was reportedly found by his wife bleeding at the entrance to his block of flats, shot several times in the back, and died in an ambulance. > He apparently did not tell his wife that the murder had been staged. "Special apologies to my wife," he said at the press conference." He'll be in the doghouse for a while after this.
- ceejayoz 8y agoI wonder how long they made her wait to find out.
- gbrown 8y agoWow, that kind of thing could give someone PTSD. I think "doghouse" is putting it mildly.
- Waterluvian 8y agoThat can shatter the pillar of trust that a relationship is based on. I've experienced it before: one meaningful lie and no matter how many years of truth follow, the relationship dynamic is altered forever. There's always a cloud of doubt.
- ruskerdax 8y agoI'm betting in your case the meaningful lie didn't involve a bid to literally save the liar's life from an assassination plot by an extremely powerful organization.
- Waterluvian 8y agoYeah, I have no opinion on the right or wrong way to deal with assassination plots. I'm not exactly an expert. I think context is probably very important, but I don't think context alone can diminish the effect this kind of lie can have. You just kind of leave someone in ontological shock about the foundation of one of their most important relationships.
- bambataa 8y agoI'm not sure I could do something like that without telling my wife. Surely they could have given her some warning and kept her out of the public eye until the person ordering the assassin had been caught in the sting.
- josefresco 8y agoIf keeping it from my wife also made her (and my family) safer I would do it without hesitation.
- neic 8y agoNo. The story says (emphasis mine): > Babchenko said that his wife Olechka and his children were aware of the plan, but he publicly apologised to her at the press conference. "Olechka, I am terribly sorry," he said, "but there were no other options".
- dev_north_east 8y agoAh, they didn't have that bit in the first draft of the story linked here.
- empath75 8y agoI'm not sure I understand what happened here. Did they arrest someone who was hired to kill him? What was the point of this?
- baybal2 8y agoSay, their signals people picked up a shortwave destined to an agent, but they had no idea where to look for him. Or if the disposable and deniable hitman was employed, and the agent himself was out of their reach for whatever reason. They may have wanted to intercept him, and have their own man to reach Russian agent once the execution order was "fulfilled"
- ceejayoz 8y agoIt sounds a lot like when the FBI provides a non-functional bomb to a suspect and arrests them when they try to detonate it.
- srtjstjsj 8y agoUsually, the FBI puts intense pressure on an innocent person to convince them to accept a non-functional bomb, and then arrests them for having it.
- blowski 8y agoWhat's the chances of finding the real reason on Hacker News? There'll be thousands of reasons given, you'll never know which one is true.
- LandR 8y agoI don't get it either. Was he not actually shot? Was he even shot at? Him being found by his wife dead and bloody, did this happen? I don't understand this at all.
- rohit2412 8y agoYeah, if they had been planning for two months, likely the gun shots were staged. Then it wasn't really going to fool Russia, they hadn't attacked him. Was it an attempt to influence Western countries?
- clarkevans 8y ago#Babchenko said that he had found out about an assassination that was being planned against him and joined up with Ukrainian security services to catch the killer, and add that according to their info, Russia ordered the murder https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/1001835891948707840 https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/10018358919487078... #Babchenko: "Special apologies to my wife. Olechka, I am sorry, but there were no options here. The operation took two months to prepare. I was told a month ago. As a result of the operation, one person has been captured, he is being held." https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/1001832998994661376 https://twitter.com/polina__ivanova/status/10018329989946613... Police said that they had made one arrest in connection with the alleged assassination plot.
- tzakrajs 8y agoIn what way was the murder staging required to save this man's life? Edit: removed unnecessary language sympathetic to one side or another
- Const-me 8y agoAs far as I understood (I speak both Ukrainian and Russian languages) it was necessary to gather solid evidence against the organizer of the crime, who paid for the assassination of the journalist. The would-be assassin was an undercover Ukrainian agent, and he’ll be one of the key witnesses in the criminal case that will follow. Locking the organizer up will save more than one man’s life, both directly (other people who’s killing he might have organized in the future) and indirectly (because of the media coverage of this case, the price tag might raise a lot).
- mhneu 8y agoWow. If this was a sting that implicates Russia in paying for assassinating the journalist -- wow.
- Const-me 8y agoThe survived journalist has told to the press the organizer has gave the “assassin” the journalist’s photo identical to the photo in his Russian passport. I’m not a lawyer but that looks like an indirect evidence pointing towards Russian government.
- lostlogin 8y agoIt’s not in any way a secret that Russia kills journalists. The Russian state has been doing it for a very long time and shows no sign of stopping. Have a look at this list. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_i...
- varjag 8y agoAssassin was cooperating at the time of "assassination", they were going for the customer.
- josephjrobison 8y agoOne of the things about mainstream journalism I've noticed in the last few years is that for the most part is they're generally not completely wrong - at least about something on this scale. I'm referring to generally free and open western news organizations. And I know plenty of news organizations can get stories muted by governments in some cases for national security reasons, but often not as binary as this. The fact that this happened is pretty amazing.
- nebulous1 8y agoThey will report what they're told by the official source, as they did in this case. This isn't on the mainstream media. I'm not entirely convinced you read the article! edit: there's some confusion over my statement "this isn't on the mainstream media". I mean that this isn't the mainstream media's fault.
- coding123 8y agoI saw it on CNNs site before HN
- josephjrobison 8y agoBBC yesterday: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44296672 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44296672 BBC today: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44307611 NY Times yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/world/europe/russian-journalist-killed-kiev.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/world/europe/russian-jour... NY Times today: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/europe/arkady-babchenko-russian-journalist-killed.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/world/europe/arkady-babch...
- volgo 8y ago> This isn't on the mainstream media This is blatantly false. It was reported on the BBC and the New York Times, two of the world's biggest mainstream newspapers
- 8y ago
- mhneu 8y agoGreat that he is alive. But if this was a sting, it's not a good move by Ukraine/Kiev. It's just going to help future disinformation by the Putin regime. I wonder what their intended goal was? >John Schindler @20committee Exactly. Incredibly stupid move by Kyiv. Lots of ways to deter Kremlin wetwork without playing Western media for idiots. >Steven Sullivan @compliancedivis Right. The next time the Kremlin orders someone's ticket punched they're going to claim they're not really dead. https://twitter.com/20committee/status/1001834917054042112 https://twitter.com/20committee/status/1001834917054042112 (John Schindler: ex-NSA, deep knowledge of Western intel, has had some scandals but is a reliable source and has editorial indep at his current pub.)
- mhneu 8y agoHum, maybe they spoke too soon. If it turns out to be an effective sting...
- zzzcpan 8y agoNot sure why you are downvoted, John Schindler's opinion does matter here.
- roman_savchuk 8y ago>"The next time the Kremlin orders someone's ticket punched they're going to claim they're not really dead." Right, like Kremlin never made claims like this before. i.e., https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russian-un-ambassador-photo-fallujah-aleppo-atrocities-faked-syria-civil-war-assad-regime-a7473746.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/russian...
- meowface 8y agoThis is a solid point. This gives the Kremlin a lot of future propaganda fodder. It'll only be worth it if the sting uncovers smoking gun evidence that the orders came from the Kremlin.
- coding123 8y agoI'm sorry but what TV show are we watching right now Alias, Scandal I'm sure this didn't just REALLY happen.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- marcoperaza 8y agoEdit: To be clear, I am sympathetic to the Ukraine’s position. They are definitely the good guys in the broader saga, and have suffered greatly due to Russian wrongdoing, but there is good reason to be more skeptical of their explanation here. I’m taken aback at how uncritically people are treating it. This was a staged assassination publicly blamed on another country. That should turn your bullshit-detector to maximum sensitivity. Original post: So they blamed Russia for a staged murder, creating a very serious and very public international incident, as part of an investigation? How is no one raising the possibility that this was done to frame Russia, and that now they have changed their mind for whatever reason (perhaps fear of the ruse being discovered). Surely that’s worth considering. It’s exactly what we would be speculating if it was done by a regime considered hostile to the West, instead of one considered friendly. I have no reason to believe any particular theory of what actually happened and why, but surely, the Ukrainian government’s explanation should not just be parroted uncritically by the press and commentators.
- gandhium 8y ago> creating a very serious and very public international incident Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, sent mercenaries to Donbass and Syria, bombed hospitals in Syria, shot down MH-17, killed dozen of journalists domestically... but you've worried that one murder accusation is a 'very serious' incident?
- marcoperaza 8y agoI’m not expressing concern or lack of concern about anything but the uncritical acceptance of the explanation for what’s happened here. All of those things you list, they are very serious. And so is accusing another sovereign of carrying out a murder. Truth doesn’t have a side, and two falsehoods don’t make a truth. For the record, I am concerned about those actions by Russia. I think it’s downright awful what they’ve done to the Ukraine.
- shkkmo 8y agoWell, for the record, you sound more like a russian shill account than a skeptic. Given your comment history I doubt you actually are. While I certainly think there are more details we don't know and I'll take any explanation with a grain of salt, parroting the Russian line that this is a "Ukranian PR ruse" doesn't make you a skeptic.
- valeg 8y agoA splendid sting operation. Well done, SBU.
- josefresco 8y agoMods: I would advise locking this thread, there is questionable activity here that would seem to indicate a coordinated effort to influence the discussion and I don't see it veering back into a positive place. Edit: I shouldn't have commented as I didn't add to the conversation. From the guidelines: Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data. I'll shut up now.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nikolay 8y agoSorry to judge the guy by the looks, but he looks more like a Ukrainian mobster than a journo! Begin an Eastern European; there's almost no such thing as honest journalism in our parts of the world! Many corrupt people are presenting themselves as Kremlin critics when the reality is that they get involved with the Mafia and get punished by it!
- sabertoothed 8y ago> but he looks more like a Ukrainian mobster than a journo This has no substance whatsoever. I would expect more on HN.
- nikolay 8y agoIt is. I'm not talking about physical characteristics but his style. Google more about him!
- kakwa_ 8y agoA similar thing happened in France in the 80ies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matei_Pavel_Haiducu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matei_Pavel_Haiducu A Romanian spy was reluctant to conduct an assassination of two dissidents living in France. So he contacted the french secret services (DST). And fake attempts/executions were staged. The one that was "killed" officially stayed low for ~3 months, which enabled the (ex-)spy to fetch his brother in Bucharest and defect to the West. (video in french: http://lesoubliesdelhistoire.fr/video/200964054 http://lesoubliesdelhistoire.fr/video/200964054)
- foota 8y agoSomewhat similar situations, but I think in this case it was planned in order to capture the assassin.