In partnership with the BBC, Der Spiegel and other Western media, Ukrainian media outlet UNIAN sent a poll for readers to decide which Russian intellect should be killed next, only hours after Russian writer and activist Zakhar Prilepin was nearly assassinated in a targeted car bomb.

The question, "Who do you think should be next in the Russian pantheon of scum propagandists?", was sent to readers over Telegram. 

Potential targets included RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan (vulgarly referred to in the poll as "beaver eater"), and Russian TV news hosts Dmitry Kiselyov and Sergey Mardan among many others. The poll collected answers from 50,000 Telegram users.

#DefendOurValues
UNIAN, part of the 1+1 media group majority-owned by Kolomoysky, generates polls on its Telegram channel about which Russian journalist should be murdered next.
Clients of UNIAN are among others AP, BBC, Reuters, VoA and DeutscheWelle. pic.twitter.com/dGmqRJALgU

— Michael Kobs (@MichaKobs) May 8, 2023

Prilepin is considered the third high-profile Russian assassination target, not counting the two reported assassination attempts on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prilepin's assassination attempt comes after Darya Dugina's murder which was intended for her father, Russian nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin. Another bombing targeted and killed military reporter Vladlen Tatarsky.

US-Ukrainian intel justifying the violation of press freedom 

UNIAN is owned by the 1+1 Media Group founded by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, an ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. It is also the parent company of TSN, the TV News program that recently broadcast a bounty for drone attacks on Read Square on Tuesday during Russia's annual May 9 celebration of the defeat of Nazism.

The assassination attempt against Prilepin coincided with raids that swept up 11 war commentators in Ukraine. American journalists linked to US intel tried to justify targeting online influencers. For example, lead Russia investigator at the US-funded outlet Bellingcat, Christo Grozev, justified Tatarsky's assassination by saying that the military reporter was a "propagandist".

Similarly, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, American journalist and former Democrat operative enlisted in Ukraine’s armed forces, justified the arrest of American journalist Gonzalo Lira by Ukrainian intel for the same reason. 

On the other hand, the Biden administration has approved and has been encouraging Ukraine’s campaign of terror inside Russia. After the second assassination attempt on Putin, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked about the US' views on the matter, to which he responded, "These are decisions for Ukraine to make about how it’s going to defend itself."

In an interview for Yahoo News, conducted last month but only published earlier this week, General Kirill Budanov, the Ukrainian intelligence chief, admitted that the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) has coordinated and will continue its campaign targeting and murdering Russians "anywhere on the face of this world."

When asked about the GUR's involvement in the assassination of Dugina, Budanov said, "All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians, and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine."

To that statement, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel, that Budanov's statements are a "direct blow to the White House."

Given that Budanov, the intelligence chief of a US ally, boldly declared taking part and ordering acts of terrorism, "the Kiev regime has declared that the Biden administration is sponsoring terrorism," Zakharova indicated.