KYIV – On July 20, 2016, Belarusian-born Ukrainian journalist Pavlo Sheremet was driving to work when his car exploded. There were reports that the explosion was caused by a car bomb, and former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko described it as murder. Among the versions voiced almost immediately was that Russian intelligence services were involved. The determination of who was behind the assassination was declared a priority by Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, President Petro Poroshenko and Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov.
Nearly four years later, the murder case has yet to be solved.
Sheremet lived his last years in Kyiv, where he worked for the online news outlet Ukrayinska Pravda and hosted a radio program. The New York Times described him as “known for his crusading reports about political abuses in Belarus” and “a thorn in the side of [President Alyaksandr] Lukashenka’s autocratic government.”