A Russian journalist has been shot and killed at his Kiev apartment, police in the capital of Ukraine said.

Arkady Babchenko died of his wounds in an ambulance after a woman had phoned medical services saying she had found her husband in his blood in their home, police said.

They added they suspected the murder was due to Babchenko’s professional activities, Reuters reported.

Babchenko was one of Russia’s best-known war correspondents but had left Russia fearing for his life.

He had been denounced by pro-government politicians in Russia over comments on social media about the Russian bombing of Syria, and over his characterisation of Russia as an aggressor toward Ukraine.

When asked what police suspected lay behind the murder, Kiev police chief Andriy Kryshchenko said: “The first version is his professional activity.” 

Two years ago Pavel Sheremet, a Belarussian journalist known for his criticism of his home country’s leadership and his friendship with the slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was blown up in a car bomb in central Kiev.

Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and advisor to the interior minister, wrote on Facebook: “Putin’s regime is aimed at those who cannot be broken or intimidated.

“Today in Kiev on the threshold of the apartment where he lived, a famous Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko was shot and killed, a consistent opponent of the Putin regime and a friend of Ukraine.”