It was like something out of a James Bond film.
On May 29, 2018, news broke that journalist and Kremlin critic in exile Arkady Babchenko had been shot dead in his apartment. A photo showing Babchenko lying face down in a puddle of blood with several gunshot wounds in his back circulated on social media.
Then, at a press briefing 24 hours later, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Vasyl Hrytsak, announced that Babchenko was in fact alive, and that the staged killing was part of a sting operation to thwart his assassination. Babchenko came out on stage to prove his resurrection, shocking both Ukrainians and international media.
Now, the man convicted of organizing the foiled assassination has been unexpectedly released from prison on medical grounds.
Fake plot, real plot
The backstory to Babchenko’s staged murder was nearly as strange as the special operation itself.
Oleksiy Tsymbalyuk, a priest and Donbas volunteer fighter, contacted the SBU after being offered $40,000 to kill Babchenko by his acquaintance Borys Herman. He had accepted half of the payment, and was to receive the additional $20,000 after confirming that he had successfully killed Babchenko. Once he contacted the SBU, the it began planning the sting operation began.
Herman was the acting director of Schmeiser, a Ukrainian-German enterprise that manufactured weapons and had a long-standing business relationship with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
According to Tsymbalyuk, Herman had a list of 30 people (mostly journalists and civil society activists) he wanted assassinated by the end of 2018. The list, according to the SBU, was comprised of Russian citizens who had fled to Ukraine because of their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A month after Tsymbalyuk’s tip off, law enforcement contacted Babchenko. In order to capture the man who was trying to have him assassinated, identify those paying for the killing and take possession the list of the 30 additional people, the SBU decided to take the journalist’s death.
On May 31, Herman was arrested.
Trial
In court, Herman named Vyacheslav Pivovarnik as the alleged contractor of the assassination and the overseer “for a private fund of President Putin.” Born and raised in Ukraine, Pivovarnik left for the Russian Federation and, from 2012-2016, was the CEO of the Ukrainian branch of Russian logistics company Ruskon.
Herman also claimed that he was actually an undercover counterintelligence officer for the SBU who had been working on the operation with the SBU for six months.
Herman pled guilty and was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison after making a deal with the prosecution.
Release
In March 2019, after serving a little more than a year in prison, Herman asked to be released ahead of schedule due to a serious illness.
While a city court denied his request in August, the case was subsequently examined behind closed doors and, on Nov. 13, “the court granted him an appeal and released Herman from further serving his sentence for health reasons,” the press secretary of the prosecutor’s office, Maryana Gayovskaya stated.
Babchenko pointed out that Herman’s closed-door hearing lasted less than an hour, and he was released with the help of corrupt people.
“You can organize political assassinations and get released within half a year. It’s now possible. Half a year ago, I told people that before you can snap your fingers everything will fall apart. And now it has fallen apart,” Babchenko posted on Facebook.
The prosecutor’s office also noted that it opposed Herman’s release and did not receive a full transcript of the closed door hearing. It does not know the full reason for the court’s decision and therefore does not know whether it will appeal the court’s decision.
“Well… I warned you,” Babchenko concluded his Facebook post.
