Ukraine has released images which appear to show the dead body of a former MP who it allegedly assassinated in Moscow, in a warning to other Russian collaborators.‘’
Illia Kyva, a pro-Kremlin opposition politician who fled to Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, was shot dead on 6 December by a Ukrainian assassin.
An image purporting to show his dead body lying face down in blood-speckled snow was released on Monday by Ukraine’s state news agency.
“This is a signal to all traitors and war criminals who have flipped to the enemy side,” a source from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU said.
“Remember: Russia will not protect you. As Vasyl Maliuk, head of the SBU, said earlier, death is the only prospect that awaits the enemies of Ukraine.”
Mr Kyva, 46, was sentenced in absentia by a Kyiv court to 14 years in prison for high treason last year.
He has been sanctioned by Britain for undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty and regularly criticised his homeland on Russian state TV talk shows.
Russian officials were caught off guard last week when they discovered his lifeless body despite him being said to have had a large security detail.
“An unknown person fired shots at the victim from an unidentified weapon,” its investigative committee said in the aftermath of the incident in Moscow’s upmarket Odintsovo suburb.
The SBU source said its assassin had stalked Mr Kyva for weeks to identify his habits and routines before “liquidating” him near where he filmed anti-Ukrainian propaganda videos.
Another picture released by the news agency showed a small knife and a black pistol which were said to have been used in the hit.
It also published a video which it claimed showed Mr Kyva walking before his death. It said it had been filmed by the assassin as they waited to pounce.
He was said to be a top priority on the SBU’s ‘Maliuk’ list of high-profile targets, which is named after its chief.
“Such a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine, as well as the henchmen of the Putin regime,” Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR), said last week.
