Oles Buzyna, a former editor-in-chief and one-time parliamentary candidate, was killed on Thursday by shots fired from a passing car

A controversial pro-Russian journalist was shot dead outside his home in Kiev on Thursday, just hours after a prominent opposition politician was murdered under similar circumstances in Ukraine’s capital.



The two murders come after a series of apparent suicides among former supporters of Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted as president by last February’s Maidan revolution.

The spate of deaths have led to fears of a witch-hunt against supporters of the old regime, but Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko immediately declared the two murders part of a “deliberate provocation” aimed at destabilising the country.

Journalist Oles Buzyna was murdered by two masked people at 1.20pm local time, according to the police. The suspects then drove off in a car with either Belarussian, or Lithuanian number plates, they said.

The previous evening, a former MP and supporter of Yanukovych, Oleh Kalashnikov, was also shot dead just outside his apartment. In the days before his death, Kalashnikov had told friends he was receiving “threats of physical destruction”.

Police said they are looking into several potential motives in Kalashnikov’s murder case, including his political activities, his business and debts, as well as his personal relations.

Ukrainian politicians were quick to insist the murders were provocations intended to undermine the pro-western government.

“It is evident that these crimes have the same origin,” said Poroshenko in a statement. “Their nature and political sense are clear. It is a deliberate provocation that plays in favour of our enemies.

“It is aimed at destabilising the internal political situation in Ukraine and discrediting the political choice of the Ukrainian people.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Oles Buzyna, who was 45. Photograph: Sergei Vaganov/AP

Poroshenko’s language was eerily reminiscent of Putin’s words immediately after the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in February. Putin also claimed the murder was a “provocation” organised by Russia’s enemies.

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A number of Ukrainian politicians agreed with Poroshenko. Both victims were suspected of involvement in organising a series of rallies last year against Ukraine’s revolution, known as Antimaidan. Ukraine’s authorities insist that the murders are an attempt to get rid of witnesses in the case, and called on other potential witnesses to seek police protection.

“Everyone who was involved in organising and financing Antimaidan, or other illegal acts against Maidan and feels their life is under threat, are advised to come to law enforcement organs to not go the same way as Kalashnikov and Buzyna,” Anton Gerashchenko, an MP and adviser to the interior minister, wrote on his Facebook page. He did not make clear who might be trying to eliminate them, but other politicians were more blunt.

“Looks like FSB provocation,” wrote MP Sergei Leshchenko, who until the Maidan revolution last year was an investigative journalist, on his Twitter feed, referring to the Russian security service.

“It looks as if an FSB shooting brigade arrived and is shooting them off,” MP Volodymyr Ariev told the Guardian. “It easily fits into the Russian narrative that Ukraine is all about fascists, a country where even basic right for life is violated.”

However, Kalashnikov’s former party colleagues said he talked about receiving threats in the weeks coming up to his death. In one letter he wrote to a colleague just two days before his death, made available to the Guardian, he complained about “an open genocide of nonconformity, threats of physical destruction and constant dirty insults.”

He claimed the threats were for his calls to celebrate the 70th anniversary of victory in the “Great Patriotic War”, which will be celebrated lavishly in Moscow on 9 May. The war has become a sensitive topic with Russian propaganda claiming Kiev is occupied by Nazis, and making tenuous links between the conflict in east Ukraine and the second world war.

Putin was told about the murder of Buzyna during his live phone-in session on Thursday and said: “This is not the first assassination. There is a whole series of such killings in Ukraine.”

Buzyna, known for his pro-Russian position, had also complained about methods used by the current authorities to deal with political opponents. Last month, during an interview with a Russian television channel he compared the tactics to those used by ex-President Yanukovych, who fled to Russia during last year’s revolution.