Exiled former Russian lawmaker killed in Kiev
Ukrainian claims of Moscow’s hand in murder are absurd, Kremlin says
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine accused Russia of “state terrorism” after a former Russian lawmaker and key witness in a treason case against former leader Viktor Yanukovich was shot dead in broad daylight outside a hotel in central Kiev on Thursday.
Russia called the allegation “absurd.”
Former MP Denis Voronenkov was killed by an assailant who died in hospital after being wounded by Voronenkov’s bodyguard during the incident, police said.
Voronenkov fled to Ukraine with his wife last year and was helping the Ukrainian authorities build a treason case against former Ukrainian president Yanukovich.
President Petro Poroshenko said the killing “is an act of state terrorism on the part of Russia, which [Voronenkov] was forced to leave for political reasons.”
Poroshenko said it was “no accident” that Voronenkov was shot on the same day as a warehouse storing tank ammunition was blown up at a Ukrainian military base.
Moscow denied any involvement Voronenkov’s murder .
“We believe that all the falsehoods that can already be heard about much-hyped Russian involvement are absurd,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying about the killing.
Voronenkov has also spoken out against Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, although he voted for the move at the time.
Voronenkov was gunned down on his way to meet another former Russian parliamentarian, Ilya Ponomarev, who was the only member of the Duma who voted against the annexation of Crimea.
“There’s an obvious theory - I’ve said that Voronenkov wasn’t a crook, but a deadly dangerous investigator for Russian officials,” Ponomarev wrote on Facebook.
Television footage showed Ponomarev and Maksakova leaving the scene in a car together with Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko.
Lutsenko called the shooting a “cynical murder.”
“This was a typical show execution of a witness by the Kremlin,” he said.
Voronenkov had been placed on a Russian federal wanted list in connection with an alleged $5 million property fraud.
Yanukovich fled Ukraine during the 2013-2014 Maidan street protests, which he said were tantamount to a “coup” organized by armed nationalist radicals.