Russia charges Armenian-Ukrainian man over 2023 Moscow assassination of ex–Ukrainian MP

Armenian-Ukrainian businessperson Arayik Amirkhanyan has been charged in the assassination of former Ukrainian MP Illia Kyva, a pro-Kremlin figure who fled to Russia before the full-scale war. Kyva was shot outside of Moscow in 2023 in an operation attributed to Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).

Earlier this week, a source familiar with the investigation told the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti that Amirkhanyan had been charged with murder and weapons trafficking, and on Thursday, RIA Novosti reported that he is currently the only individual ‘identified and arrested’ in the case.

Amirkhanyan has pleaded not guilty, the outlet wrote.

Earlier this year, he was sentenced to six years in prison by a Russian court on bribery and fraud charges in an unrelated case. It is unclear if he has already begun serving his sentence in the previous charge.

Amirkhanyan has also had his share of legal trouble in Ukraine — prior to the full-scale war, his company had received state contracts for construction works, which he reportedly embezzled. As a result, Ukraine put him on a wanted list in 2020 for fraud. In 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship, reportedly because he still had an Armenian passport, violating Ukrainian law.

Kyva’s assassination was one of the most high-profile examples of Ukraine’s intelligence targeting opponents abroad after 2022. During his time in government, Kyva was openly pro-Russian, a position he maintained after the beginning of the full-scale war and into his self-imposed exile in Russia.

In April 2022, Kyva wrote on Telegram that Russian President Vladimir Putin should launch a ‘pre-emptive strike on Kyiv’, and in his final social media post before his death, said that he wished Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would commit suicide.

Shortly after his assassination, Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov said, ‘such a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine’.