A day after Arkady Babchenko was reported to have been killed, it was revealed that his death was staged by Ukranian security services, apparently to expose a plot to kill him. A full update on this story can be read here.

Moscow (CNN) Moscow and Kiev are blaming each other for the death of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who was shot dead in his apartment building in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman implied Russia had orchestrated the killing. Babchenko was a vocal critic of the Kremlin and left Russia in 2017, saying he no longer felt safe there.

"I'm sure that the Russian totalitarian machine did not forgive him his honesty and his fidelity to principle," Groysman said in a Facebook post.

"Best friend of Ukraine, who told the truth about Russian aggression to the world. The murderers must be punished!"

Arkady Babchenko covering unrest in Kiev, Ukraine, on January 22, 2014.

Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform said Babchenko, 41, was shot in the back and died in an ambulance, citing his friend and supervisor, Ayder Muzhdabaev, deputy general manager of Ukrainian TV channel ATR.

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