A pro-Russian journalist was shot dead in Ukraine's capital Thursday, leading Kiev to brand the latest murders of pro-Moscow figures an enemy "provocation". Columnist Oles Buzyna, 45, a supporter of Ukraine's ousted Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych, was gunned down in central Kiev by an unknown assailant just hours after the slaying of former ruling party lawmaker Oleg Kalashnikov in the city.
Ukraine's government said the killings of its opponents was aimed at destabilising the country as it battles pro-Russian separatists in the east in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people.
An AFP photographer saw Buzyna's bloody body lying on the ground near a playground in the centre of the capital surrounded by police officers after the shooting. Police found Kalashnikov shot dead at his home in Kiev Wednesday evening.
The killings follow a spate of suspicious deaths of former Yanukovych allies in February and March that raised suspicions among critics that the pro-EU government's opponents were being persecuted.
President Petro Poroshenko called the latest killings "a deliberate provocation which plays into the hands of our enemies, destabilising the political situation in Ukraine".
Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted to the killing during a televised appearance on Thursday even before the shooting was officially confirmed.
He called it "Ukraine's latest political assassination" and accused the Ukrainian government of doing nothing to investigate the deaths.
Putin had himself branded the killing of Russian opposition activist Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in February as a "provocation".
Ukrainian interior ministry official Anton Gerashchenko said he suspected Russia of ordering the killings to sow "terror" and make it look like Ukraine's government was hunting down its rivals.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of arming the rebels who have gained control of much of eastern Ukraine, a charge Russia denies.
Buzyna was editor of the daily newspaper Segodnya, financed by Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man and a leading sponsor of Yanukovych's Party of Regions. The journalist also regularly appeared on Russian television commenting on the Ukraine crisis.
Son of a KGB officer, Buzyna wrote on his website calling for the federalisation of Ukraine as desired by its former Soviet master Russia.
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