Self-exiled Kazakh journalist Natalya Sadyqova says the shooting of her husband in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, appears to be a "professional" operation that came hours after the couple issued a video critical of President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his "pro-Russian" politics.
Aidos Sadyqov, a noted Kazakh opposition activist and journalist, is currently in intensive care fighting for his life after he was shot by an unknown attacker while driving a car near an apartment block in Kyiv's Shevchenko district on June 18.
Sadyqova, who was also in the vehicle but was unharmed, said the bullet hit her husband in the temple and that he remains in a "very serious condition" after brain surgery.
Sadyqova told RFE/RL in an interview on June 19 that she saw the shooter's face. She gave no further details as an official investigation is under way.
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Kazakh Opposition Journalist Shot In Kyiv
"The only thing I can say -- he was a professional killer. We were driving by the courtyard. He shot at a moving object. He fired a single shot and hit his target. It was a very professional man, a hitman who was hired to kill Aidos," Sadyqova said.
Sadyqova added that the chief of Ukraine's National Police Ivan Vyhivskiy, who was among the police officers who arrived at the crime scene right after the attack, promised to keep the investigation of the attack under special control.
Ukraine's Prosecutor-General's Office has said an investigation on the "attempted murder of a journalist, a citizen of Kazakhstan," is under way, but has given no further details.
Toqaev said on June 19 that he had sent questions on the case to Ukraine via diplomatic channels, and that Kazakhstan is ready to participate in any investigation "to help find the truth."
The couple, along with their family, moved to Kyiv in 2014 after Kazakh authorities launched a case against Sadyqova, who worked as a journalist for the independent Respublika newspaper at the time. She was accused of slander.
Sadyqov used to lead a branch of the opposition Azat Social Democratic Party in his native Aqtobe region in Kazakhstan's northwest until 2010.
He later headed a group that was a major force to create a union defending the rights of Kazakh workers at the Chinese-owned CNPC-Aktobemunaygaz oil company.
Sadyqova said in the June 19 interview with RFE/RL that hours before the attack, she and her husband had issued a new video titled Toqaev Is Putin's Puppet on their Base YouTube channel.
The video criticizes Toqaev's "pro-Russian politics" and looks at the activities of Russian oligarchs and agents of influence in Kazakhstan, some of whom obtained Kazakh citizenship after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
She said Toqaev stands to be a beneficiary of the shooting "because the Kazakh opposition has been fully cleansed."
She did not present any evidence that connected Toqaev in any way to the shooting.