A Russian journalist harshly critical of the Kremlin was shot and killed in the Ukrainian capital Tuesday, and the national police said he apparently was targeted because of his work.

Ukrainian police said Arkady Babchenko's wife found him bleeding at their apartment building in Kiev and called an ambulance, but Babchenko died on the way to a hospital.

Police said he died of multiple gunshot wounds to his back.

TsUR said the journalists had been investigating the activities of the so-called Wagner group, an organization of private military contractors which, people with ties to the group have told Reuters, carried out clandestine combat missions on the Kremlin’s behalf in eastern Ukraine and Syria.

Confessed Russian agent Maria Butina claimed more than five years ago that her gun rights group had entered into a “signed cooperation agreement” with the National Rifle Association, according to a contemporaneous account of a talk Butina gave to an Israeli organization.