The video will start in 8 Cancel

The Daily Star's FREE newsletter is spectacular! Sign up today for the best stories straight to your inbox Sign up today! Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Invalid Email

(Image: GETTY)

Sheremet reportedly got into the car, started the engine and drove several dozen metres before the blast.

He was killed instantly and the vehicle – reportedly owned by his newspaper’s editor – has completely burnt out.

A renowned journalist critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Crimea campaign, Sherbet’s death has even drawn some Twitter users to compare it to the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

(Image: GETTY) (Image: GETTY)

Sheremet worked for Channel One Russia until 2014 before resigning and leaving the country in protest of Putin’s media crackdown.

He wrote that it was “quite shameful to work in news programming” in Putin’s Russia and claimed reporters were expected to do the president’s “dirty deeds”.

Although there are currently no suspects behind the attack, it’s being treated as suspicious by police.

Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian official with the country’s interior ministry, described the incident as a “cynical and well-premeditated murder”.

“The killers must be found and punished,” he added.

(Image: GETTY)

He then confirmed that Ukrainian authorities will launch an investigation into the reporter’s death and refused to rule out whether he suspected Russian involvement.

Sheremet devoted his life to analysing relations between Russia and Ukraine – as well as developments in the various former Soviet republics.

He was a well known crusader for human rights and an outspoken critic of Putin’s government.

As a young reporter, he worked on political abuses of power in Belarus and was imprisoned by their government in 1997.

He worked for the Ukraine Pravda newspaper – whose co-founder Georgy Gongadze was murdered in 2000.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter to say he is “shocked” and “has no other words”.