Pavel Sheremet, a well-known Belarusian journalist who had spent the past five years in Ukraine, was killed when the car he was driving exploded in central Kiev Wednesday morning.
An official with Ukraine’s interior ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, said in a statement on Facebook that the explosion was caused by a “car bomb.” He said the incident was a “cynical and well-premeditated murder.”
Gerashchenko said Ukrainian authorities will launch an investigation into the reporter’s death and said Russian involvement could not be excluded.
“The killers must be found and punished,” Gerashchenko said.
Sheremet has been critical of authorities in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in his articles and broadcast pieces.
He started his career in Belarus, where he was imprisoned after covering corruption in the government of President Aleksander Lukashenko. Afterwards, Sheremet worked for Channel One Russia, before resigning in 2014 in protest against President Vladimir Putin’s media crackdown.
Sheremet most recently worked at Ukrainian Pravda. The founder of the newspaper, Georgiy Gongadze, was murdered in September 2000. His killers have never been caught.
More photos of explosion that killed Pavel Sheremet https://t.co/XEmoWlMOxh |EMPR pic.twitter.com/sSH8HuKdpK
— Euromaidan PR (@EuromaidanPR) July 20, 2016
VIDEO: Russian journalist Pavel Sheremet murdered in car explosion in Ukraine https://t.co/IIBJivpiI0 https://t.co/Qw6FAq4yqV
— RT (@RT_com) July 20, 2016