KIEV, Jan. 26 – Ukrainian investigators are still looking for evidence linking the recently foiled plot to kill a lawmaker and the murder of a prominent journalist last year, Vasyl Hrytsak, the head of the SBU security service, said Thursday.

Hrytsak’s response comes days after the lawmaker, Anton Herashchenko, who also advises Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, said the plot and the murder were directed from the same headquarters in Russia.

“It may be linked, or may not be linked. If we see the similarities, we will obviously investigate these things,” Hrytsak said at a press conference. “We are already working on them. But so far I cannot say that these crimes are linked.”

Pavel Sheremet, the journalist who worked for the investigative online newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, was killed in July 2016 when his car exploded in downtown Kiev. President Petro Poroshenko said the murder was an attempt to destabilize Ukraine.

The murder is investigated by the police, which is under the interior ministry, while the plot to kill Herashchenko is investigated by the SBU security service.

The link between the two crimes would show that Russia has been sponsoring terrorist strikes against Ukrainian citizens, targeting prominent figures and politicians within the country. This would strengthen the case for more anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West for invading Ukraine and annexing parts of its territory over the past 2.5 years.

Sheremet had the Russian citizenship and was known for his criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was also known for his friendship with the slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Putin’s main opponent.

Hrytsak said January 21 the SBU foiled the plot to kill a Ukrainian lawmaker. The plot was apparently organized by a Russian operative who had hired two Ukrainians to carry out the attack.

Hrytsak did not name the lawmaker, but Hermshchenko had later announced that the plot was organized to kill him. The attackers tried to plant explosives underneath Herashchenko's car, resembling the way the bomb was used to kill Sheremet.

The murder of Sheremet was a throwback to the days of violence against journalists that Ukraine, under a pro-Western leadership since the 2014 Maidan protests, hoped to have shed.

Poroshenko asked experts from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to join the murder investigation in the interests of "maximum transparency."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, reacting to Sheremet murder, said: "The murder of a Russian citizen and journalist in Ukraine is a very serious cause for concern in the Kremlin." (nr/ez)