[18] After leaving the armed forces in 2000, Babchenko worked as a war correspondent for more than a decade,[4] including for Moskovskij Komsomolets and Zabytyi Polk.

[15] Between 2002/2003 and 2006, the literary magazine Novy Mir published Babchenko's account of his experiences as a soldier in Chechnya, in a series of chapters titled "Ten Episodes About the War".

[26] In December 2016 Babchenko wrote on Facebook that he had "no sympathy, no pity" for members of the Alexandrov Ensemble choir and pro-government journalists who died in the 2016 Tu-154 plane crash near Sochi[27] en route to Syria.

"[28] In the backlash, his home address was revealed to the public, he then received personal threats and some people called for him to be stripped of his Russian citizenship.

[nb 2] He subsequently moved to Kyiv with his family and started working as a presenter for the Kyiv-based Crimean TV channel ATR.

[35] The next day, Babchenko appeared alive and well on live Ukrainian television at a press conference held by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

[2][40][41] Previously in Kyiv, vocal critics of Vladimir Putin, journalist Pavel Sheremet and politician Denis Voronenkov, had been assassinated in 2016.

[45] The SBU also said it had detained a Ukrainian suspect[2] (allegedly recruited by a Russian intelligence official), and an accomplice,[9] who was engaged in preparations for the contract killing of Babchenko.

[2] The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the International Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders criticised the Ukrainian authorities for the staged death of Babchenko.

[45][52][53][54] Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also rejected criticism of the sting operation, claiming that because of it "The whole world saw the real face of our enemy.

"[44] On 31 May a Ukrainian court had remanded Borys Herman in custody for allegedly having paid to a hired hitman after the news of the "killing" broke.

Boris German pleaded guilty and made a plea bargain, and on August 30, 2018, the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced Herman to 4.5 years in prison.

[61] In November 2019, Babchenko relocated to Israel as a response to the election of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President of Ukraine in April 2019.

"[63] After a period of vociferously insisting on Israel as his country of residence, Babchenko has employed a "no comment" policy regarding his permanent location.