How pig blood, make-up artist and a morgue were used to fake anti-Kremlin Russian journalist’s murder

Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist who faked his own death in order to evade what he says was Kremlin’s plot to assassinate him, said on Thursday that pig’s blood and a make-up artist were used to help stage the incident.

In a joint interview in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, Babchenko said he was taken away in an ambulance from the scene of his faked murder to a morgue, where he changed clothes and began watching the news.

Babchenko detailed the deception to reporters on Thursday for the first time since Ukrainian authorities revealed that they had staged his death to foil an alleged plot on his life by Moscow’s security services.

He told fellow reporters at a news conference in Kiev that he could have refused when Ukrainian officials approached him with the idea for the ruse about a month ago. He says he agreed of his own volition.

Kiev police said on Tuesday that the 41-year-old Babchenko had been shot to death inside his apartment building, but announced the next day that he was alive and they had detained a suspect in the case.

Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine were topics on which the journalist was scathingly critical of the Kremlin.