The Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko has described how his own death was dramatically faked, in an extraordinary operation involving a make-up artist, pig’s blood and a trip by ambulance to the morgue where he cleaned himself up and watched news of his “murder” on live TV.

Speaking at a press conference, Babchenko defended the tactics used by Ukraine’s security services, and said the plot to kill him was terrifyingly real. After being told a contract had been taken out on his life Babchenko said he wanted “to collect my belongings and disappear somewhere in the North Pole. But then I realised, where do you hide? [Sergei] Skripal also tried to hide.”

Skripal, a former Russian spy, was released from hospital two weeks ago after he and his daughter Yulia were targeted in a nerve agent attack in Salisbury in early March. UK officials have said it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the attack.

Instead, Babchenko agreed to participate in an elaborate counter-plot. “It was not about fake news. It was a question of a special operation,” he said. He said the authorities had shown him his and his wife’s documents, photos of his flat, and pictures that could only have come from inside the Russian passport office.

“You do not ask yourself if this news is fake. You are thinking about how to survive,” he said.

Babchenko – who fled from Moscow to Kiev in 2017 – said his wife was fully aware of the plan. On Wednesday he apologised to her during a press conference organised by Ukraine’s SBU spy agency, when friends and colleagues learned to their great surprise that he was still alive.

“My wife, of course, knew, because everything took place in our house before her eyes,” he explained. 

The journalist and former soldier requested that she not be dragged into what happened, adding that he was “tired of being afraid for himself”, and did not want to be afraid for his family too. He said he regretted that “I had to drag my friends through all this”.

Preparations for his fake murder were meticulous. They went on for “a long time, a month”, Babchenko revealed. On the day of his “assassination” a make-up artist came in to his apartment. He practised falling over. “I was made up, the blood was natural. Everything was for real,” he said.

After the staged shooting by an imaginary assassin his wife rang the police and called an ambulance. The paramedics and doctors turned up, lugged him on to a stretcher and carried him out into the street and into a vehicle. “The legend was that I was still alive [at that point],” he said.

“We left, then I ‘died’,” Babchenko recounted. “The ambulance reported in the fact of my death, after which I was taken to the morgue. Until the gates closed, I played at being dead,” the journalist said.

Once inside, and in a secure area, Babchenko said he was “resurrected”. “I got up, took off my T-shirt and washed. I turned on the TV. I sat down and watched news of my ‘murder’. After that I was taken to a secure location. It all ended at five in the morning.”

His account is unlikely to quell criticism of the operation. International journalist groups, and fellow correspondents, have complained that the SBU’s methods have damaged trust in the media, and handed a propaganda gift to the Kremlin.

Babchenko, however, was unrepentant. He said: “When someone comes to you and says here’s an order for your killing, do you proudly say: I’m thinking about the media’s reputation! Let me be killed! Carry on!” In the end, his murder had been averted, and significant evidence collected, Babchenko said.

On Thursday Ukraine’s government defended its decision to falsify Babchenko’s death.

In London, Ukraine’s embassy released a defensive statement, pleading with international partners to support its fight against Moscow.

“The hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine demands unorthodox approaches while effecting countermeasures,” the embassy said.

“No other way to uncover the Russian-schemed attempt at Mr Babchenko’s life had existed than a special operation conducted in full secrecy,” it added.

Arsen Avakov, Ukraine’s interior minister, said he was deeply puzzled by the reaction of several international organisations, which criticised the SBU operation to save Babchenko’s life.

“We are surprised by the statements made by a large number of international organisations, which said that we ‘misled society.’ Did you really want Babchenko to have been killed?” Avakov asked.

He continued: “I think that from now on, Ukrainian security services and law enforcement agencies will not be guided by public opinion, by what this or that pseudo-ethical authority will say about them.”

“Rather, they [will be guided by] the need to ensure peace and quiet in our territory and protect people from attacks.”

Questions continued to swirl on Thursday over why the SBU resorted to such extreme measures to preserve Babchenko’s life.

A spokesperson for Petro Poroshenko, who posed for a photo opportunity with Babchenko on Wednesday, said the president had “no plans to provide any more comments”. The investigation was ongoing and “a lot of info cannot be given out,” he added.

In Kiev, journalists and media groups were still reeling after a wild day and a half in which they went from planning candlelight vigils to mourn another slain colleague to jubilation at the news that he was still alive. There were calls for more official information. 

“We are happy that Arkady is alive and that his attempted murder was prevented. But at the same time, we must get answers to very important questions,” Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Kiev-based Institute for Mass Information (IMI), a media watchdog, said. Speaking about the international criticism of the operation, Romaniuk said she felt embarrassed, and was concerned about the potential implication for press freedom.

“Everybody now feels manipulated,” she said, referring to her journalist colleagues.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she admitted, though, that part of her found the whole thing to be “cool”.