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Ukraine journalist Pavel Sheremet killed in Kiev car bombing Car bomb kills pioneering journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kiev
(about 5 hours later)
A prominent journalist working for a Ukrainian online investigative newspaper has been killed by a car bomb in central Kiev. A car bomb in Kiev has killed Pavel Sheremet, a pioneering journalist and outspoken critic of leaders in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Pavel Sheremet, who wrote for Ukrayinska Pravda, was driving to work in the car of the newspaper’s owner on Wednesday morning when it was blown up, an adviser to the interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, said. Security camera footage showed the car had entered an intersection when an explosion ripped through it from underneath. Passersby ran to pull Sheremet out of the vehicle, which later caught on fire.
Two witnesses said they had heard a loud blast and saw an explosion from underneath the car, which lay charred in the middle of the street. Sheremet had been on his way to host his morning radio show. He was driving a Subaru XV belonging to his partner, Olena Prytula, the owner of the news site Ukrainian Pravda, where Sheremet worked.
“I’m in shock, I don’t know what to say. It is a matter of honour for the police to investigate the case,” said the head of the national police force, Khatia Dekanoidze. “I will personally take charge of the case.” Zoryan Shkiryak, an aide to the interior minister, said investigators suspected a homemade explosive device of 400-600 grams of TNT equivalent that was possibly detonated remotely.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, posted a message on Facebook saying: “The day has begun with terrible news. The prominent Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed this morning.” Shkiryak said the likely motive was Sheremet’s professional activities, but added that investigators were considering personal conflicts and the “involvement of Russian special services”. Colleagues including the editor of Ukrainian Pravda said they believed the killing was retribution for his work.
The editor of Ukrainska Pravda, Sevgil Musaieva-Borovyk, told news agencies he thought Sheremet was killed for his “professional activity.” “Pasha [Sheremet] didn’t have business or criminal connections, he always said journalists can’t take weapons into their hands and can’t be close to politicians because closeness hurts their independence. I’m 99.9% sure that it was connected with his profession,” said Svetlana Kalinkina of the liberal Belarusian online television station Belsat, who co-authored a book about the Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko with Sheremet.
“Why do they kill journalists in Ukraine? Someone wants to destabilise the situation in the country by doing this,” the editor said. The Ukraine president, Petro Poroshenko, called the journalist’s death a “terrible tragedy” and ordered specialists from the US and the European Union be brought in to assist the investigation.
Originally from Minsk, Sheremet has was particularly critical of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko’s crackdown on dissent. Sheremet began his career as a television journalist in his native Minsk. He was arrested after filming himself crossing into Lithuania and back illegally for a Russian television story about smuggling in 1997, sparking a diplomatic spat between Russia and Belarus. Under pressure in his home country, he left to work in Russia before moving to Ukraine several years ago.
In the 1990s, Sheremet was editor-in-chief of the popular independent weekly, Belarus Business News, as well as anchor and producer of Prospekt, a news analysis program on Belarusian state television that was banned by the president in 1995. He was a supporter of the pro-European movement that toppled president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 and was known for his criticism of the Belarusian and Russian governments. He was often detained and occasionally beaten when he returned to Minsk for demonstrations, but “if he thought it was professional duty to uncover something, he did that no matter what threats were made,” Kalinkina said.
In 1997, the journalist was arrested while reporting about smuggling across the Belarus-Lithuanian border and sentenced to two years in prison – a move widely viewed as politically motivated. Amnesty International declared him prisoner of conscience. Sheremet had won the Committee to Protect Journalists press freedom award and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) prize for journalism and democracy.
In 1999 Sheremet was presented with the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award. In 2002, he was presented with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Prize for Journalism and Democracy. Related: 'The world can be better': a tribute to journalist Pavel Sheremet
The journalist’s death prompted an immediate outpouring of grief from colleagues in Ukraine. Kalinkina said: “He was first to have an analytical programme on Belarusian television, Prospect. It was critical of the authorities, he showed us this was possible and even necessary.” She added that Sheremet had been worried about the future of the independent Belarus Partisan news site he founded.
Mustafa Nayyem, a member of parliament and former journalist at Ukrayinska Pravda, told Radio Free Europe: “It’s terrible. We’re all very sad today.” Mustafa Nayyem, an MP and former journalist at Ukrainian Pravda, told Radio Free Europe: “It’s terrible. We’re all very sad today.”
Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter that Sheremet was “one of the best”, adding: “Pavel was such a decent man. So sad.” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, tweeted:
The founder of Ukrayinska Pravda, investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was murdered 16 years ago. His body was found decapitated in a forest outside Kiev. The incident helped to precipitate Ukraine’s Orange revolution. The founder of Ukrainian Pravda, the investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze, was murdered 16 years ago. His body was found decapitated in a forest outside Kiev. The incident helped to precipitate Ukraine’s Orange revolution.
In his last blogpost for Ukrainian Pravda, Sheremet had warned about how some militia commanders and veterans of the conflict in eastern Ukraine have escaped responsibility for other crimes.
The OSCE’s media freedom representative, Dunja Mijatović, said Sheremet’s killing “reminds us all that the safety situation for journalists in Ukraine must be addressed effectively and timely”.