A “special SBU operation” aimed at “liquidating” a “traitor, collaborator and propagandist”. The Ukrainian secret services do not even hide it: the assassination of Illia Kyva, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician found dead this Wednesday, December 6 near Moscow, was indeed an operation sponsored by kyiv. In any case, this is what a source within the Ukrainian Defense sector confirmed to AFP, going so far as to specify that he had been killed “using small arms”.
Russian news agencies, citing local authorities, have confirmed that the body of Illia Kyva was found with “a head injury” in a hotel in the Odintsovo district, near Moscow. “According to initial information, the murder of Illia Kyva was sponsored; among the versions of this crime, the investigation is considering a Ukrainian trace,” a police source told the Russian agency TASS.
0.03% of the vote in the 2019 presidential election
Illia Kyva, who died at the age of 46, was the perfect example of Ukrainian politicians who over time became real agents in the service of Moscow. His initial political career, however, did not necessarily portend this. He was notably a member of the Right Sector, a Ukrainian ultranationalist paramilitary group formed during the Euromaidan revolt in 2013. As recalled by the New York TimesIllia Kyva even explained on Ukrainian television in 2017 that “all lovers of the Russian world” would be “eliminated from the face of Ukraine”.
A defense of Ukraine which did not last very long. Illia Kyva is notably running in the 2019 presidential election under the label of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, a party banned in March 2022 by kyiv for its supposed links with Russia. He will only collect… 5,869 votes, or 0.03% of the vote. Far from the 5,700,000 votes obtained by Volodymyr Zelensky in the first round.
Convicted in Ukraine for “high treason”
He nevertheless managed to be elected deputy in 2019 of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, within the opposition party “For Life”, also banned since for its links with Moscow. A mandate marked by numerous controversies, such as several fights with other deputies or the revelation of the falsification of his doctoral thesis. In 2021, he also describes Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “great leader”, definitively confirming his shift towards Moscow.
A few weeks before the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Illia Kyva left Ukraine for Spain, before finally finding refuge in Russia, where he would become a privileged guest on Russian television sets. He will be dismissed from his mandate as a Ukrainian deputy in March 2022, after comments relaying propaganda from Moscow, declaring in particular that “the Ukrainian people must be liberated” and that “Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians are one and the same people”. In November, Illia Kyva was even sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court to 14 years in prison for “high treason”.
Andriï Yussov, spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), “confirmed” on television the death of the former MP. “Other traitors to Ukraine will suffer the same fate,” he warned. “We can only see that justice takes various forms.”
Secret services trained and equipped by the CIA
While another local pro-Russian Ukrainian politician was found dead on Wednesday, in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, all evidence shows that kyiv is acting well behind the scenes against the Moscow regime. The American daily The Washington Post was already able to reveal last October in a long investigation that the Ukrainian security services had carried out a series of targeted assassinations in Russia, and that the services which organized these operations have been trained, equipped and advised for years by the CIA.
In his last message on his Telegram channel, published the very morning of his assassination, Illia Kyva wrote that he hoped that Volodymyr Zelensky would commit suicide, “so that he would take all the problems with him and that would put an end to all difficulties.” A publication accompanied by a photo showing a doll bearing the image of the Ukrainian president hanging from the end of a Christmas tree. It would seem that Zelensky is still far from having said his last word.