A Ukrainian businessman who was reported murdered in Odessa Region last week is actually alive, officials revealed on Tuesday. His death had been staged by law enforcement as part of a sting operation against an alleged Russian agent, according to statements by the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office and security service, the SBU.

The man was identified in the press as car dealer Gennady Beybutyan, who heads a group called the Law Enforcement Assistance Unit. Members of such organizations play the role of civilian enforcers for conscription officials and allegedly moonlight as intermediaries between wealthy draft dodgers and corrupt officials willing to spare them in exchange for a bribe, according to Ukrainian media reports.

The statements by the prosecutor’s office and SBU claimed that Russia wanted the man dead due to his “public support of mobilization.” A staged assassination would have “incited panic and destabilized the socio-political situation in the region,” the SBU suggested.

The alleged Russian agent is a 43-year-old Ukrainian citizen who resides in the western city of Lviv. He allegedly was willing to pay $80,000 for the contract killing, but the man he engaged to do the job actually worked for the Ukrainian special services.

The fake hitman provided fabricated evidence of the businessman’s death, officials claimed. The person who hired him was caught red-handed trying to send the fake evidence to his “Russian handlers,” according to the SBU. He reportedly had a hand grenade on him when he was taken into custody. The suspect has been charged with a conspiracy to commit a contract killing and illegal possession of explosives.

Kiev adopted a major military reform earlier this year hoping that streamlining the conscription process and imposing tougher punishments for draft evasion would boost recruitment rates. The government is currently considering cracking down on online speech criticizing the brutal nature of the mobilization, as well as taking measures against those who help others avoid mobilization patrols, according to recent remarks by officials on the issue.

Kiev has a track record of staging high-profile assassinations. Perhaps the best-known case was in 2018, when the SBU fabricated the murder of journalist Arkady Babchenko. The government of then-President Pyotr Poroshenko used the supposed death of the journalist to speculate that the hit had been ordered by Moscow.

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