A former priest has revealed he was paid £30,000 to murder an anti-Putin Russian journalist in a case that shocked the world.
The ‘death’ of Arkady Babchenko in Ukraine caused a sensation in May when it was revealed the assassination had been faked.
It was staged to get more information about a mysterious group paying hitmen to kill both him and a number of other people.
Former monk Oleksiy Tsymbaliuk was paid £30,000 to murder an anti-Putin journalist
Arkady Babchenko speaks to Panorama about how he faked his own death to save his life
Now, Oleksiy Tsymbaliuk, a former monk and Orthodox priest, has spoken about how he was approached by an old contact and asked to carry out the murder in the reporter’s home.
Tsymbaliuk told BBC’s Panorama that killing a person ‘is not difficult at all’ but that he decided to tip off the SBU – Ukraine’s intelligence service.
‘He [the contact] told me that there was a hit list,’ he explained. ‘And that there were people willing to finance this being carried out – and would I be interested in the job. I of course agreed.’
When asked if he planned to go through with it, he said: ‘Well of course not. Whether you agree or not doesn’t matter. If you refuse a request like this – you probably end up dead.’
Mr Tsymbaliuk has spoken about how he was approached by an old contact and asked to carry out the murder in the reporter’s home
The ‘death’ of Mr Babchenko (pictured) in Ukraine caused a sensation in May when it was revealed the assassination had been faked
The former monk then told the intelligence services, who told him they wanted to let the plot unfold to try to trap the perpetrators.
Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the SBU, told the programme: ‘We were told there were several units in Ukraine and that this assassination is just a test run for others.
‘Only by staging this crime, could we get the list of targets.’
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is pictured at a meeting in Moscow last Thursday
The operation saw a make-up artist called in and pig’s blood used to make the ‘crime scene’ look realistic. The fake assassin then made his entry.
Mr Babchenko was reported to have been shot three times in the back in the stairwell of his apartment block in Kiev. A photograph of his body was then released to the world’s media.
Shortly after, the priest was rigged up with a secret camera to go to a meeting and collect his money.
Speaking of the moment he saw the fake murder scene, Tsymbaliuk said: ‘Everything looked very real, the make-up people did a great job.’
Mr Babchenko defended the tactics used by Ukraine’s security services, saying: ‘At first I just wanted to grab my family and flee…But then it became clear to me, why should we run? We have work to do.’
The SBU said when they arrested Borys Herman, the man who hired the former monk, they found a hit list – part of a raft of evidence they argue proves Russia’s security services were ultimately behind the plot. Russia has denied Ukraine’s ‘ridiculous’ allegations.
The Fake Murder That Fooled The World is on BBC1 at 8.30pm tonight.