Editor’s Note: Ukraine’s SBU security service has claimed it conducted an operation to prevent the assassination of a Russian journalist living in Ukraine, Arkady Babchenko. He was reported to have been killed on May 29, only to turn out to be alive on May 30. The security service claims this was a special operation to capture the organizers of the killing, and prevent the killing of another 30 Russians living in Ukraine.
Ihor Chmyriov, student
My opinion has changed a little (about the SBU) because I didn’t think that they were capable of this… I don’t want to say anything bad about the SBU, but it was really like in an American movie. If they’ve really uncovered the assassin’s paymaster, then everything is fine. I’ll take into account that there might not have been much else to do in the situation, but it wasn’t completely right from a human point of view that people were worried.
Natalia Omelchuk, choreographer
I didn’t understand this move. I was shocked why they needed to take it. It wasn’t a step to increase trust, but vice versa – it undermined trust. It’s good he is alive, but how long he will stay alive? How long they will be able to prevent these attempts? I don’t believe they will manage to do it for a long time, because no one liked this move on the other side of the border (in Russia).
Olena Toporovska, businesswoman
I have a lot of distrust in the SBU and anybody from the Interior Ministry. I don’t believe in these fairytales, in the context of killing it’s complete nonsense. Trust hasn’t grown. It even seems like some kind of farce. If they really saved 30 lives, it was probably (worth it), because human life is very valuable. But this is just a theory, and if it’s all a fairytale… (then) it wasn’t worth it at all.
Ihor Shatkovskiy, businessman
What I see is laughter – they put on a show here. It depends what kind of goals they were after – if it was to get popularity, then it’s good for the government, but for regular people – they just made people laugh. You have to live in this country for a very long time to have trust in it. Of course, it won’t happen soon – it will take three or four generations.
Adriana Bila, student
The operation was done skillfully – only people who had to know were informed. I think it was done very professionally, though we (Ukrainians) are always looking for some kind of failure, but let’s support it and look at the results.
Liubov Kozhushko
I am very happy. (I do trust them) 100 percent or even more. When I heard yesterday that they’d managed to prevent this crime, it increased the standing of our country at the international level. And it showed who are our unprofessional politicians, those who reacted very badly to this incident and started criticizing our government.
