A renegade Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia shortly after Moscow’s invasion has been found dead near Moscow
ByThe Associated Press
December 6, 2023, 5:02 PM
KYIV, Ukraine — A renegade Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia shortly after Moscow’s invasion was found dead on Wednesday near Moscow. The Ukrainian military intelligence lauded the killing, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same fate.
Illia Kyva, 46, a former member of Ukraine’s parliament who had called for Kyiv to surrender when Russian troops invaded the country in February 2022, was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a cottage village near Moscow.
Russia’s state Investigative Committee opened a probe on murder charges.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence, said in televised remarks that Kyva was “done,” adding that “the same fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine and accomplices of Putin’s regime.”
Since his flight to Moscow, Kyva was a frequent participant in talk shows on Russian state television during which he blasted the Ukrainian leadership. Ukrainian authorities charged him with treason in absentia.
Kyva’s killing follows a slew of other attacks on prominent war supporters in Russia.
In August 2022, Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist ideologist Alexander Dugin, died in a car bomb explosion outside Moscow.
And in April, Vladlen Tatarsky, a prominent Russian military blogger was killed by a bomb that was planted in a bust depicting him. He was given the artwork at a meeting at a cafe in St. Petersburg . The explosion wounded 52 people. A Russian woman accused of giving him the bomb at the behest of the Ukrainian military intelligence is currently on trial.
Russian authorities have blamed Ukrainian security agencies for those and other attacks in Russia.