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But Moscow, later Wednesday, condemned the plot, with the foreign ministry saying ‘now the true motives are beginning to be revealed for this staging, which is totally obviously yet another anti-Russian provocation’. 

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was ‘great news’ that Babchenko was alive but on Twitter she slammed the ‘propagandistic effect’ of the set-up.

Grytsak, during his press conference, thanked Babchenko and his family, who he said were in the loop about the secret operation. The reporter, however, apologised to his wife for putting her through ‘this hell she had to live through for three days…but there was no other option’. 

He later defiantly promised on Twitter to ‘die at 96 after dancing on Putin’s grave’. ‘God, it got so boring being dead,’ he wrote. ‘Good morning.’

News of the ‘death’ of the prominent Russian war correspondent and former soldier set off a series of recriminations between Kiev and Moscow, and pictures and flowers were laid by mourners at the Russian embassy in Kiev. 

Ukrainian officials led by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman accused Russia of being behind the killing of the Kremlin critic, a charge that Moscow batted back.

Reporters Without Borders also condemned the faked death. ‘It is pathetic and regrettable that the Ukrainian police have played with the truth, whatever their motive… for the stunt,’ Christophe Deloire, the head of the Paris-based media watchdog, told AFP. 

And Russian investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, a former colleague of Babchenko, also questioned the value of the operation. ‘To me, it’s crossing a line big time. Babchenko is a journalist not a policeman, for Christ sake, and part of our job is trust, whatever Trump & Putin say about fake news,’ he wrote on Twitter.

‘I’m glad he is alive, but he undermined even further the credibility of journalists and the media,’ he added. 

A number of Kremlin critics have been killed in Ukraine in recent years, with one gunned down on a Kiev street in broad daylight and another whose car exploded.

Babchenko fought in Russia’s two Chechen campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s before becoming a war correspondent and author. He repeatedly said he faced death threats. 

He has contributed to a number of media outlets including top opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and is an avid blogger, accusing Russian authorities of killing Kremlin critics and unleashing wars in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. 

He wrote about his experience as a young soldier in the Chechen campaigns in a book published in English under the title ‘One Soldier’s War’. Babchenko left Russia in February 2017 after receiving threats, living first in the Czech Republic, then in Israel, before moving to Kiev. 

He has hosted a programme on the Crimean Tatar TV station ATR for the past year. Babchenko made a name for himself with his poignant reportages from the frontlines, including the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 10,000 people. 

In recent years his increasingly bombastic posts pushed the boundaries of good taste and some of his colleagues and followers stopped reading him on Facebook.

It was claimed that the shoot was done in association with the brand Too Black Guys, with Drake previously wearing clothes from the label’s ‘Jim Crow Couture’ range. 

However, Drake has now broken his silence on the photo, and explained the concept behind the shoot. 

In a note shared to his Instagram story, the Nice For What star wrote: ‘I know everyone is enjoying the circus but I want to clarify this image in question. This was not from a clothing brand shoot or my music career. This picture is from 2007, a time in my life where I was an actor and I was working on a project that was about young black actors struggling to get roles, being stereotyped and typecast.

‘The photos represented how African Americans were once wrongfully portrayed in entertainment. Me and my best friend at the time Mazin Elsadig who is also an actor from Sudan were attempting to use our voice to bring awareness to the issues we dealt with all the time as black actors at auditions. 

‘This was to highlight and raise our frustrations with not always getting a fair chance in the industry and to make a point that the struggle for black actors had not changed much.’

While Drake addressed the blackface issue, he has not yet commented on Pusha T’s claims that the Canadian rapper fathered a son with an ex.

Germaine Greer's controversial statements Other statements made during her Today programme appearance: 

Allegations ‘wreck lives’: ‘The amount of legal muscle that will be used to defend these people is massive and I’m concerned for damage limitation rather than maximasation.

‘Rather than wrecking people’s lives, so they become career rapees.’

Non-disclosure agreements: ‘Some [alleged victims] have been paid six figure sums in the form of non-disclosure agreements.

‘That’s a dishonorable thing to accept and it’s not something you should boast about.’

#MeToo doesn’t work: ‘I don’t actually think it’s gone too far, I don’t think its got anywhere at all.

‘What we need is to sort out the law regarding rape and to sort out our concept of what it is.’

Historic allegations ‘pointless’: ‘It’s pointless now bringing up this stuff when most of it no action can be taken.

‘Why wait 20 years?’

What she would have done: ‘I wouldn’t have been sitting around being quiet and keeping a secret.’