An ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was found murdered in Odintsovo, near Moscow. Ilya Kivu. The Ukrainian intelligence services do not particularly hide the fact that they dealt with him. What is known about Kiva?
What is known about Kiva’s murder
The body of ex-deputy Ilya Kiva was found in a forest belt near the Velich Country Club hotel in the village of Suponevo, Odintsovo district, Moscow region. According to the SHOT telegram channel, a hotel employee came across him at about three o’clock in the afternoon. She recognized the guest who rented the cottage. The woman called an ambulance, but the doctors only stated Kiva’s death.
Forensic experts found that Kiva was killed with a pistol shot to the head. The killer ambushed him while walking in a local park.
The bullet passed tangentially, so the injury looked like a cut wound. For some time, the ex-deputy was still alive. Apparently, he tried to crawl to the hotel, but his strength left him.
A unit of the Investigative Committee for the Odintsovo district opened a criminal case of murder. Investigators are pursuing various versions, but the main one remains a contract killing connected with Kiva’s Ukrainian past. Also, personal life, debts, domestic conflict and unfulfilled obligations are not discounted. The investigative team is working in the house rented by the ex-deputy and is interrogating his partner. It is possible that she could have brought in the killer.
Crime detectives are trying to track down the killer. They interview hotel staff and local residents, and collect surveillance footage. As it turned out, access to the Velich Country Club territory was free, so it was not difficult for the killer to track down the victim. Enhanced passenger screening measures have been introduced at Moscow airports and train stations. Security forces are studying the lists of all hotel guests for several months. According to SHOT, special attention is paid to foreigners and citizens with registration in the southern regions.
Those who ordered the murder are not particularly hiding. Representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine Andrey Yusov admitted that “Kiva was liquidated during a special operation.” He promised that a similar fate awaits all traitors of Ukraine.
Who is Kiva
Ukrainian media are now openly rejoicing at the death of the former People’s Deputy of Square, calling him nothing less than a traitor. Both in Ukraine and in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) he is remembered as a bright and very controversial political and public figure.
Kiva was born in 1977 in Poltava into an ordinary working-class factory family. After graduating from school, the future politician studied at the Poltava Oil Geological Exploration College to become a mechanic, and later graduated from the Poltava Pedagogical Institute. Korolenko, having received a diploma of educational psychologist.
Until 2010, he worked in various positions in industry, and at the same time studied to become a lawyer at the National Law University. Yaroslav the Wise. A year later, as deputy head of the Department for Consumer Rights Protection of the Poltava Region, he was caught taking a bribe, but received only a fine and a ban on holding public office for a year. The court explained the lenient sentence due to Kiva’s poor health.
In 2014, the future Rada deputy was amnestied, and he became a police major in his native Poltava, and a year later he was transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Kherson region with an early assignment to the rank of police lieutenant colonel.
How Kiva supported Euromaidan
At the same time, Kiva took part in the riots on the side of the Euromaidan activists, where he met the leader of the Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh.
After this, yesterday’s policeman became an influential figure in the nationalist formation and was even Yarosh’s confidant in the presidential elections.
During this period in Ukraine, he was perceived as a typical brother: he could walk around with a pistol in his belt, mocked the soldiers from the Poltava battalion subordinate to him, and regularly clashed with yesterday’s comrades on the Maidan, threatening them with violence. In 2016, he was accused of setting fire to the Kyiv Inter TV channel. At that time, he held openly Russophobic views, advocated the aggressive Ukrainization of Donbass and actively fought against “Russian propaganda.”
Ilya Kiva’s political career began in 2018 with his nomination as a candidate for the presidency from the Socialist Party. However, in the 2019 elections he received only 0.03% of the votes. Then he abruptly changed his political orientation.
Why did the politician choose Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)?
After losing the elections, Kiva switched to the Opposition Platform – For Life (OPZZ) party, now banned in Ukraine. Victor Medvedchuk and became a people’s deputy of the Verkhovna Rada. Together with his boss, he opened a city branch of the OPZZH in his native Poltava.
A month before the start of the special military operation, Kiva declared that he did not want to fight with Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and left for Moscow, here he ran his telegram channel with anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, and repeatedly spoke with the same position on federal television channels.
A criminal case was opened against the fugitive deputy in Ukraine, in May of this year he was put on the international wanted list, and on November 13, the Lychakivsky District Court of Lvov found him guilty of high treason and encroachment on the territorial integrity of the state and sentenced him in absentia to 14 years in prison with confiscation of property. At the time of the murder, the verdict had not yet entered into force; according to Ukrainian laws, Kiva had 30 days to appeal the verdict.
The Ukrainian politician was not officially married, but it is known that he had three children from different women, and recently there have been rumors in the independent media about his affair with a well-known opposition Ukrainian journalist, an employee of television channels owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, Diana Panchenko.