Ukrainian traitor MP is assassinated in Moscow by Kyiv hit squad who shot him in the head 18 months after he urged Putin to use weapons of mass destruction

Kyiv said it orchestrated the assassination of a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician today, after the body of an ex-lawmaker who had defected to Russia was found outside Moscow with a gunshot wound to the head. 

A source in Ukraine's defence sector said that its SBU security services had orchestrated the assassination of Illia Kyva, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who was kicked out of parliament and defected to Russia weeks after Moscow launched its military offensive last year.

Kyva's body was discovered in the Moscow suburbs today. His death came 18 months after he urged Putin to use weapons of mass destruction against Ukraine amid growing fears that Russia could resort to using nukes.

'An unknown person fired shots at the victim from an unidentified weapon. The man died on the spot from his injuries,' Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement. It said it had opened a case into his death.

Speaking on national TV, Ukraine's military intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov said: 'We can confirm that Kyva is done. Such a fate will befall other traitors of Ukraine, as well as the henchmen of the Putin regime.' 

Yusov called Kyva 'one of the biggest scumbags, traitors and collaborators' and said his death was 'justice'.

Russian law enforcement has launched a probe into his death at a country club in Odintsovo, near Moscow, where he lived in exile under Putin's protection.

In April last year, Kyva, 46, urged Putin to use weapons of mass destruction against his own country amid mounting concern that Moscow could resort to using nukes. 

Kyva posted the appeal to his Telegram channel - just a day after Zelensky warned that Putin could go nuclear.

Underneath the image of a nuclear explosion, Kyva wrote: 'REMEMBER!!! - THEY ARE AFRAID AND RESPECT ONLY POWER!!!

'Zelensky, his entourage and Western curators, are most afraid of a [Russian] pre-emptive strike [with] 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 which actively and already openly takes part today in the military conflict in Ukraine...

'If anyone thinks that this is not according to the rules, remember: the West wrote these rules in its own interests and only in order to more effectively destroy you.'

He spoke out after President Zelensky sat down for an interview with CNN in which he warned that the West needs to prepare for the possibility that Putin will resort to using nuclear or chemical weapons against his country.

Western officials feared the Russian strongman could resort to such desperate measures in a last-ditch effort to turn the tide of war in his favour after a series of embarrassing battlefield defeats.

'They could do it,' Zelensky said. 'For them the life of the people [means] nothing. That's why. 

'We should not be afraid... but be ready. That is a question not only for Ukraine but for all the world, I think.'

Kyva's death also came hours after he claimed in his final social media post that Zelensky would be forced to flee to Britain. 

A Kremlin propagandist, who appeared on obediently state TV shows, he had alleged Zelensky was an MI6 stooge and cocaine addict.

Five hours before his death, he posted: 'Zelensky's only option is to flee to England, but even from there he is extradited when it is favourable to the Crown or dies when it is necessary for the Kremlin.'

He saw the US failure to back Zelensky's plea for more cash and weapons this week as a victory for Putin and 'the countdown to Zelensky's removal from power'.

In a vitriolic post, he told followers: 'At this stage, many countries are ready to accept [Zelensky] and his family and guarantee safety of life, but it is impossible to be sure that they will not be extradited later.

'A logical end of the ******* who drowned the nation in blood.

'It would be better for Zelensky to commit suicide now, as losers have always done, to take all the problems with him and close the issue.

'But he is too cowardly and narcissistic for such actions.'

Kyva, who was from Poltava in central Ukraine, was wanted in his homeland for high treason in backing Putin's invasion. 

He trained as a mechanic and psychologist before entering the civil service, and was working as a police major during Russia's last invasion - in 2014. 

He led a far-right nationalist party in eastern Ukraine before getting a job in the Donetsk regional administration, then moved to the federal government and served as adviser to interior minister Arsen Avakov.

Kyva was elected to parliament himself in 2019 for a pro-Russia party founded by arrested oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, having run unsuccessfully for president.

He was kicked out of parliament shortly after Russia invaded in February last year for repeating Kremlin propaganda that the country was overrun with Nazis, has no future and needs to be 'liberated' by Putin.

Kyiv rarely used to comment on whether it was behind a spate of killings of pro-Russian figures, both inside Russia and in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces.

But lately it has started to claim responsibility for a number of attacks and openly threatened to hunt down other 'collaborators' and 'traitors'.

Since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has claimed to be behind several assassinations and attacks on pro-war Russians and former Ukrainian officials who have backed Moscow's war.

In August last year, Russian nationalist Darya Dugina was killed outside Moscow in a car bombing, while an explosion at a Saint Petersburg cafe in April killed Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for those attacks, though US intelligence and media reports have linked Kyiv to them.

Several lower-ranking Ukrainian officials and politicians who have welcomed Russia's invasion and worked for Russian-backed authorities in occupied parts of Ukraine have also been killed.

In a separate incident, a proxy lawmaker in Ukraine's eastern Lugansk region was killed in a car bombing attack also on Wednesday, Russian investigators said.

Oleg Popov, who served as a deputy in the pro-Moscow Lugansk regional parliament, was killed after the 'detonation of an unidentified device in a car', Russia's Investigative Committee said, without providing detail.