On Tuesday, Ukrainian media reported that Arkady Babchenko, a Russian war correspondent based in Ukraine, had been shot dead outside his apartment in the Ukrainian capital. The day after the alleged murder that had prompted global headlines to point to Russia as the most likely culprit, Babchenko suddenly appeared alive and well during a press conference held by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). During the press conference, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko praised him as a hero.
The SBU then stated that Babchenko's murder was staged in an attempt to derail a Russian-sponsored plan to kill him.
That same evening, the Russian journalist wrote on his Facebook page that he thought he was dying after "dancing on Putin's grave." Welcome to Ukraine, a strange, corrupt and ultra-paranoid state that is at the forefront of what some describe. like a new Cold War between the West and Russia. Like the Cold War of the last century, the current confrontation is largely due to information. The Russian government, which appears to be far more adept than its Western opponents at using information for political purposes, immediately advised capitalizing on the Babchenko case. Indeed, this bewildering and inexplicable fiasco could be regarded as one of the Kremlin's biggest propaganda victories in years.
Ever since allegations of Moscow's alleged involvement in the 2016 US presidential election began to surface in the Western media, Russia has dismissed these claims as "fake news" and anti-Russian disinformation. When Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned in England in March, the Kremlin called it an operational staging. Most Western observers see the Kremlin as the most likely culprit in the attempt to kill the Skripals.
When media around the world announced Arkady Babchenko's death in Ukraine, Moscow once again claimed that it was facing an operational staging, orchestrated by anti-Kremlin circles to put Russia in a bad light at home. than abroad. It turns out that Moscow was right. Babchenko's murder was indeed a sloppy, shoddy and incredibly clumsy operational staging, but a staging nonetheless.
The Babchenko issue could not have come at a worse time for Ukraine and its Western allies.
In the current context, global public opinion is extremely sensitive to the phenomenon of “fake news” and disinformation. Within this context, the Ukrainian state and its intelligence institutions have placed themselves at the center of a global disinformation storm that will take a long time to subside. In doing so, the government of Ukraine has irreparably damaged its reputation in the eyes of its Western allies. The Kremlin could not have asked for a better gift from its Ukrainian opponents.
The blatant idiocy of Babchenko's fake plot also raises serious questions about the West's policy towards Russia. It is one thing that the West is critical of the Kremlin and its policies, both domestic and foreign. It is quite another thing that he places his trust in governments and intelligence services such as those of Ukraine, which are clearly unreliable, unprofessional and seem to lack a basic understanding of the role of information in international affairs.