A former Ukrainian lawmaker who was gunned down near Moscow took safety precautions that were likely aided by the Russian authorities, as he "took an active part in pushing Russian propaganda," an official from Ukraine's military intelligence has said.
The body of Illya Kyva was found with two gunshot wounds in the village of Suponevo, southwest of Moscow, on December 6.
Ukrainian law enforcement sources have told RFE/RL that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) "liquidated" the former Ukrainian lawmaker during a special operation. Russia's Investigative Committee has confirmed Kyva's death and announced a criminal investigation.
Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine's military intelligence, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service on December 7 that people "who are in the active circle of the Russian special services -- and Kyva was exactly that -- and who take an active part in the work of Russian propaganda" take security precautions.
"Actually, [Russia] is trying to help such people in one way or another, and where he lived recently, this is in particular a sign of his attempts to escape and protect himself," Yusov said.
After Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyva moved to Russia, where he took part in pro-Kremlin TV talk shows and roundtable discussions.
He claimed Ukraine had been "enslaved and brought to its knees by the West, permeated by Nazism, and has no future" and called Russia's full-scale invasion a "necessary liberation."
A court in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv last month sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison after finding him guilty of high treason.
His death and that of another Ukrainian who collaborated with Russia, Oleh Popov, a former de facto lawmaker in a part of Ukraine's Luhansk region occupied by Russia, was also reported on December 6.
Popov, who headed the Russian-installed government committee on state security and defense, law enforcement agencies, the judicial system, and the protection of human and civil rights was killed by an explosive device that detonated in his car in the city of Luhansk.
Several Ukrainian nationals accused of collaborating with the occupying Russian authorities have been targeted in recent years, and some of them have been killed.
Most recently, a de facto lawmaker of the Russian-installed regional assembly in Luhansk, Mykhaylo Filiponenko, was killed last month in a car bombing. Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence claimed responsibility for that killing.
Russia has accused Ukrainian special services of organizing the assassinations. Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for the attacks.
Days before Russia launched the invasion, Kremlin-backed separatist leaders of parts of Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize their independence from Ukraine.
Russian lawmakers in mid-February 2022 also called on Putin to recognize separatist-controlled parts of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states and ratified corresponding documents after Putin signed them.
Moscow used the documents to justify its invasion.