Illia Kyva

Illia Volodymyrovych Kyva (2 June 1977 – 6 December 2023) was a Ukrainian politician who was a member of the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) from August 2019 until March 2022, when he fled to Russia.

In January 2022, Kyva left for Spain and then Russia; he supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine which began in February. On 6 December 2023, Kyva was shot dead in an attack Ukrainian media attributed to the Security Service of Ukraine. He graduated with a degree in law at the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University.

In 2014, Kyva became a police major (майор міліції) and was appointed commander of his native town's battalion, "Poltavshchyna". He became the leader of Right Sector's Eastern division stretching from Poltava to Donetsk, and was the representative of Dmytro Yarosh's 2014 presidential election campaign. When the law on the reformed National Police of Ukraine entered into force, all employees of the ministry were obliged to undergo re-certification, but Kyva did not do this. During the battle he compared Bohdan to a boar, the journalist slandered Kyva as "Avakov's bald hound", who responded by calling him a "bearded pup", deriding the TV channel as being controlled by Avakov and threatening to take over the show by making a phone call to him. Kyva wore a grey track suit to the occasion. At a later date Butkevych regarded this as having exposed Illia's bandit-like nature during a livestream on the "Цензор.НЕТ" youtube channel.

2019–2023 Kyva was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election, receiving a few thousand votes under the banner of the Socialist Party of Ukraine. Kyva expressed support for the invasion, claiming "the Ukrainian people need liberation" and that "Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians are one people."

One month before the invasion, Kyva had left for Spain, before moving to Russia. On 3 March 2022, Kyva was expelled from the party and faction of Opposition Platform — For Life. On 6 March 2022, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova announced that Kyva was being charged with high treason, as well as infringing on Ukraine's territorial integrity, taking part in Russian war propaganda, and illegal weapons possession.

On 15 March 2022, the Verkhovna Rada deprived Kyva of his mandate as a People's Deputy.

On 17 April 2022, he wrote about a nuclear strike on Ukraine on his Telegram account, stating: "Zelensky, his entourage and Western curators, are most afraid of a Russian preemptive strike, weapons of mass destruction. This is what can put an end to today's confrontation, not only with the Ukrainian authorities, but with the entire West".

On 18 April 2022, it was reported that Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigations had opened a case of treason against Kyva for involvement in an illegal arrangement with a general of the Russian Armed Forces.

On 21 April 2022, in an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Kyva applied for Russian citizenship and political asylum.

Based on the analysis of videos published on his Telegram account, Ukrainian investigation platform concluded on 20 June 2022 that Kyva had settled in the cottage town of Agalarov Estate, near the village Pokrovskoye in Moscow Oblast.

On 13 November 2023, Kyva was given a 14-year jail sentence in absentia by the Lychakivskyi District Court of Lviv for high treason and calling publicly for the occupation of Ukraine.

In Russia, Kyva frequently criticised Ukrainian authorities online and on Russian state television talkshows. to the west of Moscow, on 6 December 2023. The press representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian TV "Yes, we can confirm Kyva is no more. This fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine and puppets of Putin's regime." Yusov did not say who was behind the assassination. The Office of the President of Ukraine declined online newspaper Meduza's request for comment on Kyva's death.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the SBU and military intelligence have claimed a number of successful operations against high-value targets in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as well as in Russia itself. Russia has blamed the SBU for the assassination of Darya Dugina, the daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, and the assassination of military vlogger Vladlen Tatarsky. Several Russia-loyal officials in Russian-occupied Ukraine have been killed since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War.