PAVEL SHEREMET sounded characteristically energetic on Ukraine’s VestiFM radio on July 19th: “Welcome, brothers and sisters from Kiev, Kharrrkov, and Dneppppaaa!” It would be Mr Sheremet’s last show. When he set out for the studio the next day, a bomb ripped through the red Subaru he was driving, leaving the 44-year-old journalist dead in Kiev’s city centre. A flower-laden memorial now graces the intersection, adorned with pictures and notes from mourners. One note features lyrics from Vladimir Vysotsky, a Soviet-era folk singer: “Death selects the very best, and pulls them away one by one.”
Mr Sheremet’s killing shocked journalists and activists across the post-Soviet world. A native of Minsk, Belarus’s capital, Mr Sheremet made a name for himself by covering political repression under that country’s strongman, Alexander Lukashenko. He spent three months in prison in 1997, receiving a press freedom award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. He spent more than a decade working in Moscow in television, before leaving for Kiev to live and work with his new partner, Olena Prytula, the co-founder of Ukraine’s leading...Continue reading
Souce: Europe http://ift.tt/2a9jbSb
EmoticonEmoticon