RUSSIAN journalist Arkady Babchenko turned up at a news conference in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after police reported he had been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment building.

The country’s security services said Babchenko’s death was faked to foil a plot to take his life.

Ukrainian police had said on Tuesday that Babchenko, a strong critic of the Kremlin, was shot multiple times in the back and found bleeding there by his wife.

Authorities said they suspected he was killed because of his work.

Vasyl Gritsak, head of the Ukrainian Security Service, announced at a news conference on Wednesday that the security agency and the police had solved Babchenko’s slaying.

He then startled everyone there by inviting the 41-year-old reporter into the room.

To the applause and gasps of the press, Babchenko took the floor and apologised to his friends and family who mourned for him, including his own wife, and were unaware of the plan.

“I’m still alive,” he said. “Apologies to my wife, Olechka. I’m sorry, but there were no other options. The operation was being prepared for two months.

“They told me a month ago. As the result of the operation, a man is taken, he is in custody.”

Intelligence chiefs in Kiev say the Ukrainian assassin recruited by Russian intelligence officials to kill Babchenko had in turn hired an accomplice to act as the gunman — and both had been arrested.

“G” was paid $40,000 to kill Babchenko, 41, and had been in the process of acquiring a vast arsenal of automatic weapons and ammunition when he was taken into custody, according to Ukrainian security officials.

“Thanks to this operation we were able to foil a cynical plot and document how the Russian security service was planning for this crime,” Mr Grytsak added.

A number of Kremlin critics have been killed in Ukraine in recent years, with one gunned down on a Kiev street in broad daylight and another whose car exploded.

Babchenko, one of Russia’s best-known war reporters, fled the country in February 2017 after receiving death threats.

Babchenko fought in Russia’s two Chechen campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s before becoming a war correspondent and author. He repeatedly said he faced death threats.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the staged death as a “pathetic stunt”.

Christophe Deloire, the head of the Paris-based media watchdog, said that while he was relieved that Arkady Babchenko was alive, “it is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive... for the stunt”.

Babchenko has contributed to a number of media outlets including top opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and is an avid blogger, accusing Russian authorities of killing Kremlin critics and unleashing wars in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

He wrote about his experience as a young soldier in the Chechen campaigns in a book published in English under the title One Soldier’s War.

Babchenko left Russia in February 2017 after receiving threats, living first in the Czech Republic, then in Israel, before moving to Kiev.

He has hosted a program on the Crimean Tatar TV station ATR for the past year. Babchenko made a name for himself with his poignant reportages from the front lines, including the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 10,000 people.

In recent years his increasingly bombastic posts pushed the boundaries of good taste and some of his colleagues and followers stopped reading him on Facebook.

Meanwhile, his colleagues have captured the moment they found out that he is still alive.

Emotional video posted by Radio Free Europe shows staffers at Ukrainian TV network ATV cheer, gasp and hug as they watch the stunning press conference where police revealed that Babchenko’s previously reported “death” was actually staged — and he then appeared in the flesh.

Several bounce up and down whooping and clapping, while others cover their mouths in stunned silence.