Kiev said today it orchestrated the assassination of a Ukrainian pro-Kremlin politician after the body of an ex-lawmaker who defected to Russia was found outside Moscow.
A source in Ukraine's defense sector told AFP that SBU security services orchestrated the assassination of Illia Kyva, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was expelled from parliament and defected to Russia weeks after Moscow launched its military offensive last year.
Kyva's body was discovered today on the outskirts of Moscow, Russian news agencies reported.
His death came 18 months after he urged Putin to use weapons of mass destruction.
Speaking on national television, Andriy Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine's military intelligence, said: 'We can confirm that Kyva is ready. Such a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine, as well as the accomplices of the Putin regime.”
Ilya Kyva, 46, once party leader in Kyiv's parliament, was found 'covered in blood' in a suspected murder by Ukrainian secret services
Ilya Kiva, an opposition politician expelled from parliament for supporting Putin's invasion, called on Russia to use weapons of mass destruction (above)
Yusov called Kyva “one of the biggest bastards, traitors and collaborators” and said his death was “justice.”
Kiev rarely commented on whether it was behind a wave of killings of pro-Russian figures both inside Russia and in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.
But recently the country has begun to claim responsibility for a number of attacks and has openly threatened to hunt down other “collaborators” and “traitors.”
Since Russia invaded last February, Ukraine has claimed to be behind several killings and attacks on pro-war Russians and former Ukrainian officials who supported Moscow's war.
Russian police have launched an investigation into his death at a country club in Odintsovo, near Moscow, where he lived in exile under Putin's protection.
In April, Kyva urged Putin to use weapons of mass destruction against his own country, amid growing fears that Russia could resort to the use of nuclear weapons.
Kiva was accused of treason for supporting Putin (file photo)
Kyva was expelled from parliament shortly after Russia invaded in February this year because he repeated Kremlin propaganda that the country was overrun by Nazis, has no future and must be 'liberated' by Puti (File Photo)
Kyva posted the call on his Telegram channel – just a day after Zelensky warned that Putin could go nuclear.
Under the image of a nuclear explosion, Kyva wrote: 'REMEMBER!!! – THEY ARE AFRAID AND ONLY RESPECT POWER!!!
'Zelensky, his entourage and Western curators fear one most [Russian] preemptive attack [with] weapons of mass destruction.
“This is what can put an end to the current confrontation, not only with the Ukrainian authorities, but with the entire West that today is actively and already openly participating in the military conflict in Ukraine…”
“If anyone thinks this is against the rules, remember: the West wrote these rules in its own interest and only to destroy you more effectively.”
He spoke out after President Zelensky sat down for an interview with CNN, in which he warned that the West must prepare for the possibility that Putin will resort to using nuclear or chemical weapons against his country.
Western officials feared that the Russian strongman might resort to such desperate measures in a last-ditch effort to turn the tide of the war in his favor after a series of embarrassing battlefield defeats.
“They could do it,” Zelensky said. 'For them the life of the people [means] Nothing. Therefore.
'We should not be afraid… but be prepared. That's not just a question for Ukraine, but for the whole world, I think.'
His death also came hours after he claimed in his last social media post that Volodymyr Zelensky would be forced to flee to Britain.
A Kremlin propagandist who appeared on well-behaved state television programs, he had claimed that Zelensky was an MI6 stooge and cocaine addict.
Five hours before his death, he posted: “Zelensky's only option is to flee to England, but even from there he will be extradited if it is beneficial to the Crown or die if it is necessary for the Kremlin.”
He saw the US's failure to support Zelensky's plea for more money and weapons this week as a victory for Putin and “the countdown to Zelensky's removal from power.”
In a vitriolic post, he told his followers: 'At this stage, many countries are ready to accept this [Zelensky] and his family and guarantee the safety of life, but it is impossible to be sure that they will not be extradited later.
'A logical ending to the ********* that drowned the nation in blood.
“It would be better for Zelensky to commit suicide now, as losers have always done, to take all the problems with him and settle the matter.
“But he is too cowardly and narcissistic for such actions.”
The cause of death is still being clarified, Russian sources said.
A source in Ukraine's defense sector told AFP that SBU security services had orchestrated Kyva's killing.
Kyva was wanted in his home country for high treason in supporting Putin's invasion.
Kyva, from Poltava in central Ukraine, trained as a mechanic and psychologist before joining the government, and served as a police major during Russia's last invasion – in 2014.
He led a far-right nationalist party in eastern Ukraine before taking a job in the Donetsk regional administration, after which he switched to the federal government and served as advisor to Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov.
Kyva was himself elected to parliament in 2019 for a pro-Russian party founded by arrested oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, after unsuccessfully running for president.
Kyva was expelled from parliament shortly after Russia invaded in February this year because he repeated Kremlin propaganda that the country was overrun by Nazis, had no future and needed to be “liberated” by Putin.
Ukraine's Channel 24 said Kyva's 'liquidation' near Moscow was 'a special operation of the SBU' [intelligence service].