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A former Ukrainian MP who had settled in Russia and was sentenced in Ukraine for treason was shot and killed in a village outside Moscow, Russian investigators said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The MP, Illia Kyva, 46, who had called for Ukraine to surrender when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, was discovered in the park of a gated community 40 km west of Moscow, Russian investigators said in a statement. They said that Kyva died on the spot after being shot at by an unknown individual and that authorities were opening a criminal inquiry into the killing.<\/p>\n
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Illia Kyva in 2019 in Ukraine.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>CC Visem<\/cite><\/p>\n Russian investigators made no mention of the potential Ukrainian involvement, but a Ukrainian intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons, said that Kyva was killed as part of a special operation orchestrated by the State Security Service of Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe criminal was eliminated with small arms,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence, said on the country\u2019s national television that Kyva was \u201cdone\u201d and that \u201csuch a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine, as well as the henchmen of the Putin regime\u201d.<\/p>\n Kyva was a controversial figure in Russia and Ukraine. Throughout his turbulent political career, he switched sides from being an anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalist to someone who argued in favour of Russia\u2019s control over Ukraine.<\/p>\n In 2021, for instance, he called President Vladimir Putin \u201ca great ruler.\u201d<\/p>\n Investigators gather at where Illia Kyva was killed near Moscow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n A former leader of a volunteer squad that fought pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine\u2019s East, Kyva left Ukraine before the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion. Since then, he settled in Russia and became a frequent commentator on Russian state television.<\/p>\n In March 2022, Kyva was expelled from the Ukrainian parliament, which he had entered in 2019 representing a Russia-leaning political party. He called for Ukraine to surrender and said that the Russian army was on \u201ca sacred mission\u201d to \u201cliberate a brotherly nation,\u201d referring to Ukraine.<\/p>\n Investigators work at the place where Illia Kyva was killed in a cottage village near Moscow, Russia.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AP<\/cite><\/p>\n In contrast, speaking on Ukrainian television in 2017, Kyva said that \u201call lovers of the Russian world\u201d would be \u201cremoved from the face of Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n In November, a court in Kyiv sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison for charges including treason and the attempted violent overthrow of government.<\/p>\n The targeting of prominent Russian and pro-Russian figures has long been part of the broader Ukrainian war effort and has continued apace even as fierce battles rage across a vast front line that has moved little over the past year.<\/p>\n In October, Oleg Tsaryov, another former Ukrainian MP who fled for Russia, survived an assassination attempt in Crimea. In May, Zakhar Prilepin, a popular Russian nationalist writer and politician, survived a car bombing in a village in Russia\u2019s Nizhny Novgorod region.<\/p>\n Other deaths that appeared to be assassinations have been successful.<\/p>\n In August 2022, a car bombing in a Moscow suburb killed Daria Dugina, daughter of a hawkish pro-invasion commentator. US intelligence agencies said they believed Ukrainian government representatives authorised the attack.<\/p>\n Last April, a prominent Russian military blogger, Maksim Fomin, who was widely known by his pen name Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed after a bomb exploded in a St Petersburg restaurant, where he was meeting with his supporters.<\/p>\n Russia claimed Ukrainian special services were behind the attack. Ukraine has denied involvement.<\/p>\n In July, a Russian submarine commander, Stanislav Rzhitsky, was gunned down while out on a jog in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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