Shevchenko, a correspondent for the Kyiv daily Kyivskiye Vedomosti, was found hanged in an abandoned building. Kyiv police labeled Shevchenko’s death a suicide, but his colleagues at the newspaper believe he was murdered because he had co-authored a series of articles published in the weeks before his death about disputes between the mayor of Luhansk and the local branch of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), successor to the KGB.