A former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who defected to Ukraine has reportedly disappeared in Kiev, according to a statement on the website of Ukraine's National Police.
Friends of the defector, Ilya Bogdanov, say they last communicated with him on Nov. 12. Since then he has "not answered his phone and his location is unknown," according to the police statement.
Bogdanov, a former senior lieutenant of the FSB, defected to Ukraine in 2014 and received a Ukrainian passport in April 2015. He joined the Right Sector radical group-turned-political party, which Russia regards as a terrorist organization, and took part in the battle for Donetsk Airport.
The Ukrainian police have opened a criminal investigation into Bogdanov's disappearance as a case of premeditated murder.
In January 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) detained a man who allegedly had been hired by the FSB to kill Bogdanov. He was subsequently sentenced to 8.5 years in prison, according to the SBU press center.
