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Poroshenko thinks journalists's murder aimed at destabilizing situation

The Ukrainian president urges to send best specialists to investigate the case

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko

© AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

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Kiev suggests "Russian footprint" in journalist Sheremet’s murder

KIEV, July 20. /TASS/. The aim of famed journalist Pavel Sheremet’s murder was to destabilized the situation in Ukraine, President Pyotr Poroshenko said on Wednesday.

"I think this was done with one aim - to destabilize the situation in the country, possible ahead of some other events. I demand to establish an operational group and ask (Chief of Ukrainian National Police) Khatia Dekanoidze to head it," Proshenko said at the meeting with heads of law enforcement agencies. The Ukrainian president did not rule out foreign interests in Sheremet’s murder.

He also demanded that Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko and head of Security Service Vasily Gritsak "send their best specialists and do everything possible to resolve this crime as soon as possible." Lutsenko noted two main possible motives behind Sheremet’s murder - his professional activities and destabilization of the situation in the country.

It was earlier reported that Pavel Sheremet, a renowned journalist, had been killed in downtown Kiev.

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The automobile that Sheremet was sitting in belonged to Yelena Pritula, head of Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper. However, she was not in the car at the time of the blast. The vehicle blew up at the corner of Bogdan Khmelnitsky and Ivan Franko streets. At this time, Kiev police have preliminarily classified this crime as premeditated murder.

Pavel Sheremet was born in Minsk on November 28, 1971. In 1998, he took a job as a special correspondent of the Novosti program on Russia’s ORT TV channel and in January 1999 took the post of the managing editor of the Russian and foreign bureau of the TV channel’s information programs. He worked as a presenter in the weekly analytical program Vremya.

Since 2009 he worked as an editor for politics and society in the Ogonyok magazine. For the past five years, Sheremet has lived in Kiev, working in Ukrainskaya Pradva, as well as an anchorman on the Vesti radio.

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