Lawmaker Ilya Kiva attends a parliament session of Verkhovna Rada, in Kyiv, Ukraine, back in 2019 (Picture: NurPhoto)
A former Ukrainian politician turned propagandist for the Kremlin was killed near Moscow, just hours after posting an image of Volodymyr Zelensky as an ornament hanging by his throat on a Christmas tree.
Ilya Kiva, a longtime opponent of the Ukrainian president, had been charged with treason by his very own government after cheering on the invasion and fleeing to Russia, where he was given citizenship and political asylum.
When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he wrote on social media that ‘the Ukrainian people need liberation’ and that ‘Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians are one people’.
His body was today discovered in a pool of blood in the city of Odintsovo where he lived in exile, a Russian Telegram channel reported.
Investigators said he was gunned down, but no other details were provided about Kiva’s death.
Yet sources cited by Ukrainian media claimed that he was assassinated on orders directly from inside his former workplace.
‘Such a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine,’ Andrii Yusov, spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said on air shortly after the reports.
If proven true, the killing shows that Ukraine continues to have undercover assets deep inside Russia.
Hours before the incident, the proponent for Vladimir Putin’s war shared the hate-filled picture on his Telegram channel.
He wrote: ‘Zelensky’s only option is to escape to England, but they also extradite him from there when it is beneficial to the Crown or they die when the Kremlin needs it, there are plenty of examples.
‘In Ukraine, after today’s failure in the American Congress with the allocation of financial assistance, the countdown to Zelensky’s removal from power will begin, and he has not received 100% security guarantees.
‘At this stage, many countries are ready to accept him and his family and guarantee the safety of his life, but it is impossible to be sure that they will not be extradited later.
‘The logical end of the b*****d who drowned the people in blood.’
In 2019, Kiva was an unsuccessful as a presidential candidate, and he proceeded to be elected as a member of the now-banned pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party, then led by Kremlin-linked oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk.
He was finally expelled from parliament in March 2022 after escaping to Spain and then to Russia.
Kiva had also been sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court to 14 years in jail for charges including treason and incitement to violence.
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His body was discovered in a pool of blood near Moscow.